I’ve walked by this many times, but this day it caught my attention: burned-out (from the fire that deforested our dog-walk area) trunk of a pine tree. Charred outer bark, and inside the wood is disintegrating in rectilinear chunks. Huh?
Then, a snake. OK, just a snake – but no, the air was quite cool; the sun was quite hot, and the sky was blue dotted with puffy clouds, and it was lying still, almost into the sandy trail. We tried to keep the dogs from noticing it – and they didn’t – but because Syd and I stopped to look at it, three dogs came back, curious about the unusual human behavior. One almost danced on top of it, but amazingly none stepped on it. And still it didn’t move.
My best guess is it got to the side of the trail in lovely radiant heat from the sun, but when a cloud blocked the sun the cool air took over, its energy went away. I am not a biologist, much less a herpetologist. If you know more, I’d be interested to hear if I’ve got a handle on this.
It appears to be Lystrophis dorbignyi, or South American hognose snake.
I hope you have some snake experts in your readers. I would like to know more.
it is beautiful.
are you sure it was alive?
I don’t know any reason to think otherwise, but as soon as the dogs came our focus was on getting them away from it. It would have been interesting to wait for the clouds to pass and watch what happened.
In trying to find it online, I saw someone asking if this type of snake “plays dead.” The answer was no.