... eek! a snake! ...

when i was growing up, we had pet snakes ... i know, i know, that's weird ... but one of my brothers loved snakes and my parents were always encouraging us... and that included learning about snakes by having them in aquariums at home ... one particular canadian garter snake (black with yellow stripes) had a pack of fish in the freezer ... you'd whack off a hunk and put it in his (her?) water bowl to feed it .... the coolest bit was the shedding ... well, and holding it ... feels cool to hold a snake ...

so ... there are endemic galapagos snakes ... thousand of years ago they probably floated to these volcanically formed islands on rafts of fallen vegetation .. like if a tree had fallen into the ocean in ecuador, all the critters on it could float the hundreds of miles to the islands in the sea ... the snakes aren't on every island ... and they are well hunted by other animals ....

ok ...
not a great pic ...
can you see it there though?
we felt lucky when we we had our one and only snake sighting .. these galapagos snakes only get to be two or three feet long ... and are of the racer variety... i think that's right ... anyway, don't use this blog to write a science report!! . .... all information is suspect ... gleaned by excitement and interest, not by scientific study!