SLEEPING BEAR DUNES, Mich. — Life can be tough in the eat-or-be-eaten wild, especially if you are an Eastern hog-nosed snake. First, you are the Rodney Dangerfield of the slithering world since it is hard to get much respect when you are stuck with that porker of a name.
Next, you are a slow mover in a family that includes serpents and asps and thrives on speed. Finally, your bag of tricks contains only some often poorly executed thespian performances, and a self-fouling routine that has to destroy any snake’s self-esteem.
The hog-nosed snake, one of the 18 native species of snakes found in Michigan, earned that moniker with a snout that would make Miss Piggy proud. That upturned proboscis is a functional tool used to burrow through the sand and loose soil in search of toads, a delicacy only for the hog-nose’s palate.
When frightened or threatened, this snake will attempt to appear Schwarzenegger-ish by puffing up with air. It then flattens its neck and body to pretend to be a viper and, out of desperation, adds a hiss for effect. If that fails to remove the threat, the hog-nose will excrete a nasty musk to repel the invader. For your final act, you will lie on your back, mouth wide open, feigning death — a trick you stole from the opossum.
This snake is found throughout the Lower Peninsula and in the southern tip of the Upper Peninsula but is most often seen in the northern and western LP, in locales such as this iconic park located west of Traverse City. Despite all of that bluster and theatrics, the hog-nosed snake, which can reach an attention-getting 40 inches in length, is essentially harmless, as most of the Michigan native species. Its biggest threat comes from us – humans who mistake it for a dangerous serpent.
The hog-nosed snake’s vaudeville act might get it confused with Michigan’s only inherently dangerous snake, the venomous Eastern massasauga rattlesnake, a rare and endangered species. This is a small, thick-bodied snake that dwells in wetlands complexes and adjacent habitats.
Once found from Canada south through Missouri, Eastern massasaugas have lost much of their historical range, and Michigan and Ontario are believed to now hold the strongest remnants of their populations. Although it is still rare to encounter an Eastern massasauga, they are found in the Lower Peninsula and on Bois Blanc Island, located in the Straits of Mackinac.
“For snakes, in particular, there are a lot of lookalikes and many harmless snakes get killed because people think they are venomous,” said Hannah Schauer, communications & education coordinator with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division.
And those frequent cases of mistaken identity can impact snake populations, Schauer said.
“That fear isn’t necessary since most of the time, as with most wild animals, snakes don’t want anything to do with people. If you stumble upon one, the snake isn’t going to come after you -- snakes will act defensively if they feel cornered, but if you leave them alone, they will move on.”
The most common member in the Michigan snake family is the Eastern garter snake, found throughout the state in a wide range of habitats including grassy areas, landscaping, brush piles, gardens, and around barns and garages where they seek out slugs, worms, insects and small rodents.
Like most Michigan snakes, garters perform a worthwhile service cleaning up these pests. The name comes from the white, yellow, or red stripes that run the length of the snake’s back, looking much like garters.
Milk snakes are somewhat common in residential areas and around buildings, where they find the mainstay of their diet – rodents. Their name has its origin in their tendency to inhabit dairy barns, where they find many of those tasty rats and mice.
The Northern water snake, a close relative of the Lake Erie watersnake, is often seen swimming in Michigan lakes and streams where it feeds on fish and frogs. A much rarer inhabitant of those same waters is the Copperbelly water snake, listed as a threatened species due to habitat loss, predation, and collectors who seek out the uniquely-colored snake with its blueish tinge and orange belly.
Michigan also has fox snakes, named for their rusty color, rat snakes, which kill their namesake prey by constriction, brown snakes, which earned their rather mundane name with their ho-hum earth-toned exterior, and blue racers, which can grow to an impressive six feet in length but can fool you with a gray, bluish-gray, turquoise, olive, or brown appearance.
One of Michigan’s rarest snakes is the Kirtland, a small snake that prefers wet prairies and meadows and other grassy sites near marshes and streams. It has had its numbers decimated by habitat loss and fragmentation and is listed as endangered. The name was assigned by Robert Kennicott, who honored his mentor, Ohio physician and naturalist Jared P. Kirtland, whose name is also associated with a rare bird, the Kirtland’s warbler that was first identified on his farm around 1850.
“For the Kirtland’s snake, like most of our other endangered snakes and as with a lot of other species, habitat loss the primary culprit,” Schauer said. “These species have not only lost a lot of their habitat, but much of the loss has been associated with quality habitats. When roads go in and development takes place, habitat is often lost.”
First Published August 1, 2020, 10:00 a.m.
