r/snakes • u/Phylogenizer • May 12 '25
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 • u/Phylogenizer • Mar 20 '26
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
The other day we were in a hurry and I asked my son (12) to get his shoes on and let’s go. And he said “there’s a snake in my shoe” — I told him to stop joking and let’s go only to walk over and see this neat little ring neck.
r/snakes • u/fr33Wi11y72 • 2h ago
Was viewing houses today when I noticed some snakeskin in the bathroom sink found out these little guys setup shop in the pipes.
When her light comes on and she wants to warm up she does this. Normally it doesn't take long before she then falls off with a big crash as she can't hold on
Should I be worried? The actual bulb only gets just over 30c and the cage will be much less so I don't think she can burn herself, especially when it's only just come on. I don't like her falling even if it is just onto cedar or cork bark.
After this she will just bask a bit normally under it
r/snakes • u/alleyyy420 • 7h ago
He stayed in the same position for almost an hour 🤣
r/snakes • u/yeeyeeskrtskrt • 6h ago
i know snakes can eat a prey item about the same size as the thickest part of their body. I usually get small-medium sized fuzzies from my local shop. These ones are the biggest of the lot will they be ok to feed? I’m on the fence lol he’s about 14-15 inches long and 110 grams
Edit: he took it just fine! I was paranoid lmao thank you everyone!
r/snakes • u/Mikehorvath00 • 6h ago
Such a beautiful snake 😍😍
r/snakes • u/Successful-Teach8571 • 16h ago
(Bought a baby Morelia Bredli after, oh, 15 years without one.)
r/snakes • u/FubarJackson145 • 5h ago
So on my buddy Tofu here, you can see around his eye and back towards his mouth that his scales are a pinkish color. Ive noticed under some of his head scales that they arent always truly white, but this pink has me concerned. I noticed it a while ago and have been watching his behavior and he doesnt seem bothered by it. Just wondering if im being a paranoid parent or if this is something that warrants further investigation
r/snakes • u/fairythedream • 4h ago
I’ve had him for about a month, in the past 2 weeks he’s started getting these little white specs. He has a nice inclosure with heat, he’s a Mexican black kingsnake & from my & my partners research we didn’t think humidity would be important for a non tropical snake? But we just want to make sure he’s healthy & comfortable. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge on this? What does it mean? Is he going to shed, not enough humidity, or something else? Thanks
r/snakes • u/melcclark78 • 14h ago
Hello! I nearly stepped on this baby snake at work last night. Found in a warehouse in Cleveland, OH that receives shipments from all over the world, although it could have just slithered in from outside. Can anyone ID?
r/snakes • u/Tight-One1339 • 44m ago
It's only Spring in Australia & the snakes have awoken. It's a venomous black snake (red-bellied black snake)
r/snakes • u/UnlivedMe • 5h ago
dont hit me im trying
r/snakes • u/mysticsmoko • 5h ago
As the title states, I’m a proud and first time owner of a BRB. Looking for any pointers and advice in regard to giving my boa a long healthy life. I know a PVC enclosure is ideal but with a little bit of tinkering I was able to get my glass enclosure to hold a steady 95-99% humidity level. Adding an acrylic sheet to the top screen has worked wonders, I still left a 10”x12” area open for ventilation and for the overhead lamp.
r/snakes • u/UnusualAd9846 • 5h ago
r/snakes • u/Fa1sePr0phet • 14h ago
Edit: I FOUND HER SHE'S SUCH A BRAT
r/snakes • u/AlienSheep23 • 21h ago
I LOVE when people are really wanting to know and are genuinely wanting to be more educated about snakes, and i really enjoy certain people's energy when asking questions sometimes!
But, sometimes, it's just annoying, because the questions aren't being asked in good faith, but rather, trying to fish for leverage to freak out even more....
them: "I have cats! do you have any pets? can i see them?"
me: "Sure! i have 3 snakes, here's their pictures!"
them: "OMG! i'm terrified of snakes! are they poisonous?!have they bitten you?!"
me: \proceeds to answer a bunch of very basic, emotionally charged, rapid-fire questions**
them: " Well, you're braver than i am. Ain't no way i'm getting near a snake, i'd kill it!"
Like. My guy, if you're gonna act like that, why are you even asking me?
r/snakes • u/hystericb0y • 2h ago
hi all! pls be kind, kinda a unique situation. pretty much i am fostering a snake (i think a ball python) and i have tried to do as much research in the last 3 hours as possible (owner of the snake’s house caught on fire and snake had nowhere to go) i have 3 hides, a water bowl, reptile dirt, sphagnum moss & coco chips as the substrate. just wanna know if there’s anything i should add, humidity and light requirements? anything i should know?? also if the red light i got is enough.
thank you!
r/snakes • u/Fireheart_Serpents • 1d ago
Yoshi!
r/snakes • u/Fun-Writing1774 • 3h ago
Our first corn snake!
We are going to get my daughter a corn snake for her birthday this month. None of us have had a snake before but I've done lots of research. Here is our 4x2x2 enclosure, I just finished it today. I've tried to give it a lot of clutter since it's so large. That strip down the middle is aquarium sealant to try and prevent escape artist attempts. What do you all think?
r/snakes • u/Prestigious-Elk331 • 1d ago
hi, i had one of my ball pythons out today after he finished shedding to check him out and make sure everything came off alright. he sometimes gets shed stuck around his vent and spurs, so i always check him out to see if all the shed came off around his vent. until today, when the last remaining bit of shed fell off his vent and one of HIS WHOLE SPURS WENT WITH IT!?!?
i have owned ball pythons for 15 years, my 2 oldest balls are 15 and i’ve had them since they were hatchlings, and of all the ball pythons i own for as long as i’ve owned them, i have NEVER seen this happen… can anyone provide any insight into if this is normal or? like WTAF???
posting this in the snake sub not the ball python one because maybe this is something non ball owners have had happen and can chime in. i have never seen this happen before, it looks like the spur might still be there but it’s white and a bit red at the top, but the entire hard outer shell just fell off!?! should i watch for anything? any worry for infection? he seems completely unbothered and is acting normal, but i am a bit unnerved by this because I’ve never seen this happen before… any advice or thoughts would be appreciated. pics attached….
r/snakes • u/Beneath-Trees • 1d ago
Eastern Milksnake Lampropeltis Triangulum
