SANParks.org Forums

Last year i was opening a bag of wood, ready to get the fire going at Orpen, when something moved over my hand as i was picking pieces of wood out the bag.
Dropped the bag, removed some pieces and found a little brown snake.

It was aggressive and lurching forward mouth opened as it was cornered.
I took the bag to the fence to release it, it however got out the bag on route. i guided it (carefully) towards the fence where it headed back to the bush.

Also you get Scorpions, lizards, spiders.

I think its a brown house snake, but the experts will confirm

Definite Brown House Snake, gorgeous one at that!

Totally harmless, but i've had a few teeth stuck in my fingers in my time..

Nice Brown house snake- Lamprophis capensis.
What locality were you in when this happened?>

This took place in Orpen.

Was in a bag of wood i bought from the shop.

While we were packing up after more than a week's camping in Shingwedzi during May 2009, I picked up our bags of wood and behold, there was one of these underneath,-quite harmless and non venomous.

Harmless? I would have died of a heart attack.

I would have raced off to get cameras, lenses and close-up lens!

Brown House snake - totally harmless as is the egg eater and the red lipped herald snake. I think, all are back fanged and you can get a nasty bite but only if the finger is WAYYYYY back in the throat.

Jane

I dont think the brown house snake is an egg eater!

"They are small, non-venomous snakes, usually brown in color but display a range of variation from red, orange, green to black. They also exhibit a wide variety of pattern variation even within single species, they may be spotted, striped, or solid colored. House snakes are sexually dimorphic, the females grow significantly larger, to approximately 120 cm, some specimens have been recorded over 150cm, the males which only grow to approximately 75 cm."

Habits & Diet
"These snakes feed on rodents and other small mammals throughout their entire lives. They may occasionally take lizards or birds, but mammals are the stable diet. Because they are rather sedentary, one appropriately sized meal every 7 to 10 days will be an adequate feeding regimen. Watch your snakes girth, as House snakes are prone to obesity."

Nah, you're misreading B5S. She wrote... (my highlight)



But if misreading is what it takes to get more info here, please misread more often!

I think the guy selling wood to Orpen is trying to give somebody a hart attack ….we also once found a snake in a bag of wood we bought there (stayed at Tamboti)….my SO took a piece of wood out of the bag and felt something soft underneath it…snake…sadly this little guy was already dead…but it gave my SO a very lively adrenaline rush

Haha my apologies JaneBecker I have noticed that I miss read things allot on the forums!But I am glad coz then I did a bit of research and learned a few new things myself!

But Sorry!