Sometimes Looking Up to Learn More, Involves Looking Down

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It's actually been kind of nice finding some things to do that doesn't involve "Looking down" at a mini-screen micro-computer smart phone device.

Honestly, trolling and scrolling is deceivingly and deliberately addictive, and a hard habit to break.

But as my profile intro says, I love to learn and often find rabbit holes you wouldn't expect.

So sometimes looking up to learn more involves looking down.

So welcome to my trolling and scrolling for today. Here's a little trivia for your Saturday.

SNAKES!



I've been fascinanted with snakes since I was a kid in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. Helping mom plant some flowers in the front of the house, I remember seeing some garter snakes quickly slithering out of the planters to get away from us.

Growing up in San Diego, we had a lot of reptiles around - mostly California King Snakes, truly beautiful snakes. Quite a few alligator lizards as well. A right of passage growing up on the canyons of the Clairemont neighborhood in San Diego was the joy of having an alligator lizard clamp its mouth down on your unsuspecting fingers.

Holy crap, that smarts just thinking about it.

But in all the years I was lived in San Diego and the Central Valley, I never once saw a rattlesnake.

Here in North Carolina, we have 37 species of snakes, including six that are venomous (poisonous is an incorrect term.) Four of those six are protected species, two endangered and two threatened.

Three of the venomous NC snakes are actually rattlesnakes: the Timber Rattlesnake, Carolina Pygmy Rattlesnake, and the Eastern Diamondback.

All three of these are protected species. The fourth protected snake in North Carolina is the Eastern Coral Snake.

If you geek out on snakes, Texas is your goldmine with 68 cataloged species, swelling to over 100 when subspecies are included. 

If your preference is snake avoidance altogether, Alaska (with zero) or Hawaii (zero native, but two non-native species: on land, the Brahminy blind snake, laying claim as the smallest snake on Earth, and the ocean-dwelling yellow-bellied sea snake, a highly venomous species whose venom is more potent than a cobra's) should be on your places to visit list.

So here's the "trolling and scrolling" URL that caught my eye for this learning experience and Saturday missive:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/snake-population-by-state



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