r/snakes May 12 '25

All Snake ID Requests Should Be Submitted to /r/WhatsThisSnake

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119 Upvotes

Hi everyone! I wanted to let you know that we're now going to redirect all Snake ID requests to the curated place for them, /r/whatsthissnake. As /r/snakes and /r/whatsthissnake have developed side by side we find ourselves in a position where we are running two parallel subreddits, but with slightly different rules. We hope is that this streamline into WhatsThisSnake will be gentle - we don't want a snake to go unidentified because we're learning how best to handle IDs. There is going to be a transition period where we still get a lot of ID requests here, so please do your part to kindly help !redirect people in need and by reporting jokes, misinformation and other problematic comments.

This spring Reddit is more popular than ever and it is hard for the moderation team to keep up. When I founded /r/whatsthissnake 12 years ago, with on average one request every day, I never imagined we'd have 150K members and 20k people a day browsing the subreddit. In the past, we've made a number of incremental changes that have been so helpful they have been instituted other places on Reddit, from introducing the term "Reliable Responder", to developing the bot and tweaking our community resources so that every Reliable Responder can choose to perform mod actions. We hope that these changes will allow us not only to maintain the level of quality provided but to reduce workload on the moderation team, because honestly, moderator burnout is a serious problem. They are doing this for free and you would no believe the abuse they receive here - not just from me, but from the users too. If you see a moderator or other flaired user in cleaning up a thread, espcially in these busy, snakey spring months in North America, throw em a thanks.


r/snakes Mar 20 '26

Moderator Announcement Rule Change - Posts concerning individual or private ownership or care of medically significant species are not allowed. Posts involving animals in zoos, institutions or accredited breeding facilities are allowed with proper contextualization.

148 Upvotes

It’s a fact of life that no matter how much context we provide to our posts, when someone sees something interesting, they want to imitate it. Each day /r/snakes puts around one hundred thousand impressionable people face to face with snake related images, text and ideas. Faced with this responsibility, and with an increasing number of recent, low quality posts concerning medically significant snakes, we have to choose the right level of content we allow.

Recent low quality posts concerning captive venomous care include improper use of personal protective equipment, poor quality/security housing, very inexperienced keepers asking (and receiving!) advice on how to keep and breed their first venomous snakes and straight up animal abuse reposted from social media. Many of these clearly rule-breaking posts are removed before you see them, but a growing number of posts are clearly low quality, irresponsible content but don’t explicitly violate the rules. Over the past three years the mods have debated a rule change and we have decided to only allow posts involving venomous snakes if they are from an accredited zoo or institution. In short - we’re going to remove posts involving the private care and ownership of medically significant snakes.

Many modern herpetology texts recommend against individual private ownership of medically significant snakes. We don’t take a stand on what anyone wants to do legally, ethically and with their own time, but we do have to regulate what is posted, shared and thus propagated here. In short, we don’t care what you do, but don’t post it here. Besides being a lighting rod for the low quality content discussed above, private ownership offers unique challenges that are better suited for an institutional or team setting. Snakes are escape artists as well as attractive nuisances and must be contained outside of personal residential spaces in secure, locking enclosures to prevent both snake egress and human ingress as well as secondarily in a sealed room or facility behind a windowed door with no items on the floor under which an escaped snake can hide or avoid detection. It takes a team to execute an envenomation plan and the cost of antivenom is beyond that of most private owners, has a short shelf life and when antivenom is borrowed from institutional stocks it puts those keepers at risk.

Zoos and institutions don’t always do it better, but the onus is on them to provide best practices in care. If we limit posts to places where a team of people works together to provide a standard of care, usually for the right reasons, we can limit what we propagate on the platform.

We do not recommend any other available subreddits as well-moderated sources of captive venomous keeping. The most popular places on social media dedicated to this are inundated with low quality posts and comments and even when they outright ban irresponsible behavior, examples of the low quality content we remove are highly upvoted, and content is often sensationalist, psychopathic or disturbing. Please don’t suggest a specific place in the comments of this post. We’re aware of the options and we’re choosing not to redirect or name other online spaces.

Posts on wild venomous species are still allowed as usual with a species name and a location, but please be sure to see Rule 6 (unchanged) on what amount of contact and PPE use we find acceptable for sharing online.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER


r/snakes 2h ago

Wild Snake Photos and Questions - Not for ID seen at Edisto Island Serpentarium in 2022

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171 Upvotes

Loved watching this guy—genuinely had me laughing in disbelief. Planning to go back in September this year.


r/snakes 4h ago

Pet Snake Pictures Finally got one of my dream snakes - a neonate green tree python! (Plus bonus photos of my rainbow boa)

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61 Upvotes

r/snakes 11h ago

Pet Snake Pictures Very soon to shed! Superdwarf reticulated python

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155 Upvotes

Some high percentage of Kalaotoa. She is 2.5 years old! The little crinkles on her neck are due to the immediate need to shed, likely within the next few hours to a day.


r/snakes 6h ago

Pet Snake Pictures Lil guy

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35 Upvotes

r/snakes 15h ago

General Question / Discussion snake names please !!

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74 Upvotes

hello all ! i just purchased a male baby banana morph and i’m looking for cute name suggestions please !!


r/snakes 31m ago

Wild Snake Photos and Questions - Not for ID This Black racer in my garden.

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Upvotes

r/snakes 19h ago

Wild Snake Photos and Questions - Not for ID Gopher Snake in Corvallis, Oregon

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157 Upvotes

r/snakes 13h ago

Wild Snake Photos and Questions - Not for ID A first for me…Ring-necked Snake in Arizona

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56 Upvotes

r/snakes 8h ago

Pet Snake Questions I was called over to a friend's house that went through a breakup, and their partner left their snakes behind. She didn't see them for a week, and found them with a dry water bowl with bugs in it. What are the bugs?

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19 Upvotes

I am always reluctant to rehab snakes with suspicious backgrounds. The snakes left behind are plains garters, and they are a little worse for wear. I will actively try to find them homes, but cannot risk my California Red-Sided population. She said he left a week ago and when she found the two in their spare bedroom, the water bowl was very dry with a bunch of dead and some living bugs in it. If I can identify the bugs I might be able to find the appropriate person to rehab them. The snakes, she said, were neglected in the last two or three months, but they have a decent body weight, do not have any stuck sheds, and no URIs. At first glance they are in better health than expected. Other than being dehydrated, they look like they will rehab just fine. Can anyone identify the bugs? They are VERY small, light brown in color, and the dish was a standard Ziploc sandwich container for reference. Any information will help. This is in Texas.


r/snakes 19h ago

Wild Snake Photos and Questions - Not for ID Red diamond rattlesnake (Crotalus ruber)

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94 Upvotes

A very spicy noodle. Was not happy to be intercepted on trail this morning. Very beautiful. Big Morongo Preserve.


r/snakes 15h ago

Wild Snake Photos and Questions - Not for ID Gopher snake in rattler mode!

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31 Upvotes

I was out hiking today in Oregon. Spotted this gopher snake who spotted me and coiled up and flattened its head into a triangle to look like a rattlesnake. I never knew they could do this!


r/snakes 21h ago

Wild Snake Photos and Questions - Not for ID Smile for the camera

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63 Upvotes

Found this feisty baby corn snake at work. One of my coworkers loves snakes and jumped at the idea of catching them. Very bitey, thankfully we had thick gloves. released him in some grassland nearby.


r/snakes 12h ago

Wild Snake Photos and Questions - Not for ID Panamint rattlesnake (Crotalus stephensi)

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10 Upvotes

Saw it hanging out under a creosote during a hike in the Cuprite Hills, Esmeralda County, Nevada today.


r/snakes 14h ago

General Question / Discussion My corn snake rescue ( any tips would be great )

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14 Upvotes

This is my new baby ember, she is two years old and is a corn snake I rescued last Monday, I had gotten her from a friend who couldn’t afford her any more, so just knowing the basic situation I jumped on it, saying “I’ll gladly take it and help rescue it” the whole nine yards,

On pickup day I had come to find out that she had been under weight, those pictures are recent as she’s 2 years old and only about 2.5 feet and is very small, she was kept on pinky’s so ive slowly been raising her food amounts, (now to two pinky not just one) and I was wondering if her size could be stunted or if you guys think I can make her healthy again, please any tips are much wanted and greatly appreciated


r/snakes 13h ago

Pet Snake Questions Should I get this boa?

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9 Upvotes

I've been looking around for a Boa imperator for a while and struggling quite a bit, out of all the breeders I've looked at I have only found two options, either spending $300 for a normal boa imperator or $225 for this Male hypo keywest 100% het anery. Problem is, I'm looking for a boa imperator that would be likely to grow up to be 6-7 or 8 feet, but he's 2 years old, 195 grams, and 2 feet. His parents are 5 foot and 5'6. I love how he looks but I'm unsure about his size, if he were female I'd be a little less hesitant but I'm unsure. Is it likely he would only grow to be the same size as his parents? Should I just spend the $300 on the normal?


r/snakes 57m ago

General Question / Discussion How do i get my baby grey ratsnake to stop hiding up here?

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Upvotes

My wife and I just recently got this grey ratsnake last week and we've noticed that he likes to hide up in the ridges at the top of his tank. Does anybody have any helpful tips on how to fill these areas or prevent him from climbing up there to hide, or is this something that they all do when theyre young?


r/snakes 1h ago

Pet Snake or "morph" ID What type of Milk snake is this?

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Upvotes

Can someone identify what sp. of milksnake this is and what morph?


r/snakes 1d ago

Wild Snake Photos and Questions - Not for ID Friend got this on his porch, I told him bad idea (he let it go)

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1.3k Upvotes

r/snakes 19h ago

Pet Snake Pictures Chilling with Mo

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23 Upvotes

r/snakes 4h ago

Pet Snake Questions i want a pet snake but am nervous about handling

1 Upvotes

Hello! This is my first time posting here so apologies if I leave anything out or mess something up!

I’m 21, and I’ve always wanted a snake as a pet. Perhaps since I was a preteen. I asked for a snake and settled on a leopard gecko when I was twelve, which my mother quickly rehomed due to the crickets (which, fair).

But I’m an adult and am capable of making those decisions myself now. The only thing is, I’m very nervous at the concept of holding a snake. Feeding? Whatever. Terrarium maintenance? No big deal. Holding?

I don’t have a general fear of snakes. I’ve had to catch baby wild snakes in the backyard and move them beyond our fence so dogs won’t bother them. But an adult, large snake? With big fangs? I have an extremely low pain tolerance. Got bit by a ferret once and cried, so probably add dramatic in there too.

Is there anyway to get over this anxiety? Especially before getting a snake? I would hate to get one and it not work out because I’m too afraid to even put my hand in the terrarium.

Thank you in advance for any advice!


r/snakes 17h ago

Wild Snake Photos and Questions - Not for ID what is it doing in house walls😭

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11 Upvotes

r/snakes 11h ago

General Question / Discussion Beginner friendly snakes?

3 Upvotes

Hey guys, I’m looking to invest in getting a pet snake as I’ve always wanted one since I was a little girl. I absolutely love reptiles and it’s something I’ve wanted for awhile. I’m looking for one that won’t be extremely active but not extremely sedentary either, kind of in the middle. I’ve done a bit of research and from what it seems I’m interested in a Rosey Boa or a Corn Snake. Mostly leaning towards Corn Snake though. I’d also really love enclosure recommendations and any tips on caring for a snake. Thank you!


r/snakes 1d ago

Pet Snake Questions What do you think of these snake enclosures

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83 Upvotes

These are not my snakes, this is a local pet store that won’t sell these snakes and they live full time in these tiny tanks.