Large snake skins found in Virginia home: But where are the snakes that shed them?
If there’s anything worse than finding a large snake in the house, it’s the anxiety of finding just the skin it shed.
Where is the snake?
That’s what a homeowner in Richmond, Virginia, has been asking for nearly two weeks, after a wildlife trapper discovered not one, but two large snake skins in their attic during an inspection.
Virginia Wildlife Management and Control, a wildlife removal company based in Powhatan, reports one of the skins was 5 and a half feet long, and the other 6 and a half feet. Photos posted on Facebook show they were longer than the man who found them — and fresh enough not to fall apart at the touch.
As for the snakes themselves....
“Never did find it, but they typically will live in attics as long as there’s plenty of food supplies, meaning mice,” Virginia Wildlife owner Rich Perry told McClatchy News this week. “The person who lives there freaked out, but then calmed down when I explained it was non-venomous.”
The skin likely belonged to a black rat snake, he said. Rat snakes are non-venomous, but can grow to an intimidating 7 feet and have the ability to “emit a foul-smelling odor when they feel threatened,” according to the National Wildlife Federation.
“Although eastern rat snakes do not usually attack when threatened, there have been extreme cases of eastern rat snakes charging at predators,” the federation reports.
“Humane” traps were set up in the attic of the Richmond home, in hopes of capturing the snakes alive and releasing them into the wild, Perry told McClatchy News.
Meanwhile, people continue to live in the home, he said.
“We catch 4, 5 and 6-foot snakes in attics, crawlspaces, kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms all the time. Mostly black rat snakes, but we did get couple of nice sized copperheads out of a crawlspace the other day,” Perry said.
Virginia Wildlife Management and Control made national news earlier this year for finding an 8-foot long bee hive hidden in the ceiling of an apartment building.
This story was originally published May 13, 2020 at 7:07 AM with the headline "Large snake skins found in Virginia home: But where are the snakes that shed them?."