I own a 20 acre parcel of rough land with a spring fed river running through it in NE South Dakota. The land was grazed from the late 1880s until the early 1960s but has not ever been broken and there have been no cattle on it for over 50 years. Mostly it is reverting to more natural plants and animals. We built on a portion of it just over 20 years ago and that created some disturbance but since then we have only had a small vegetable garden and a couple flower beds. A few years ago this species of snake showed up. Perhaps they had been here all along but I do not think so. They are becoming more numerous and we see several each summer. They have an unfortunate habit of sunning on our gravel drive and FedEx and UPS drivers do not watch out for them. This juvenile was sunning this morning and I had my daughter take a few pics of which these are the best. Perhaps some might want to take a shot at the ID??

I can't tell from the pic . Is there a ring on its neck ? , What color is the belly ? That is more than likely an adult and I think they are protected in SD

No ring and not an adult. Green body with cream belly. We have had several about 18-20 inches, more than double this snakes size. They are protected and I do know what it is.

mm


We have them here as well most people just call them grass snakes because there green I guess, not as common as they used to be

Green racer.

There are some really well informed snake people on here and I will give them a day to see this post but will name it then if someone else does not.

Yellow bellied racer?




Charlie

Smooth Green Snake?

I like what you're doing with your place. Thanks for taking care of the little critters.

And ADC nailed it! They also have the most unusual characteristic of turning bright neon blue when newly dead, like run over by a vehicle.

Same as ADC...SGS

I found a live one sunning itself on our gravel road a couple years back and had looked it up. Not very common here either.

I used to catch a few when I was a kid and collected every snake that I could catch. We just called them grass snakes for lack of the proper name. I have not seen one in many years and never did see many back then either.

We always called them grass snakes too. I dont know if they are scarce or just good hiders with that green color

Apparently quite a few of you knew them but by the common name of grass snake. I grew up just 8 miles from where I now live and spent most every moment in the outdoors in the later 1940s and all through the 50s, and loved the wild creatures so much that i went to school for many years so i could spend my life working with them, BUT I never saw one of these snakes until just a few years ago. There were surely none on the farm where I lived as a child. On my place here today, we also have another small snake called the Northern Red Bellied snake that I also never saw as a youth. Perhaps the period immediately after WWII with all the newly discovered chemicals was a tough time for living things in ag land.

Habitats are in a constant state of change as time goes by. It is more likely that the habitat on your property has gradually changed over several decades in such a way as to be now more suitable to the snake species that are now thriving there. Different species have different habitat needs for cover, water, and prey species.

Do you have a good idea of what their main food sources may be? If the land has never been tilled and cattle have not grazed for 50 years the native plants are returning and herds of cattle are not stepping on snakes. There may be food sources benefiting from the return to native vegetation and a change in other species as well.

Bryce

The smooth green snakes are insectivores and the little research done with them suggests that insecticides that reduce their food supply are a serious problem. How many surface insects occupy ag lands as compared with mixed native prairies?

I too, suspect it is one of the Green Snakes. We have the Rough Green Snake (Opheodrys aestivus aestivus) here in this part of
Alabama. You may have the Smooth Green Snake (Opheodrys vernalis) in South Dakota. Rough green snakes spend the majority of their life in trees and shrubs hunting for crickets, grasshoppers, spiders, caterpillars, and an occasional small tree frog.

Yep, Smooth Green Snake. Neat little beasts. I haven't seen a live one in years, although I did find one fresh dead on the road by the house not all that long ago.. I don't believe I have seen more than 4-5 of them my whole life.