Finding skin in garage sheds light on snake's life
Monday, July 24, 2006
Marcus Schneck / The Patriot News
Finding a 3-foot-long snake skin behind some boxes in the corner of a cluttered garage can really slow down your organizing and cleaning efforts.
First, you have to get yourself back into the garage. Then, you will need about twice as much time as you planned for tidying up the place to allow for extreme care in looking behind every object before moving it.
The owner of the skin never did make an appearance during a recent garage-cleaning, but he or she -- probably a black rat snake or a northern black racer -- certainly left his or her mark.
Secretive, rarely seen creatures, most of us don't realize how common and how close snakes might be in our neighborhoods. Finding a snake skin inside the sanctuary of your home changes all that.
All animals shed their skins in one way or another. You and I drop about a million and a half dead skin cells every hour, re-covering ourselves with skin about once a month. Although baby snakes may shed as fast as twice a month, as they grow quickly, adult sheds go through a skin every two to four months. Also unlike you and me, snakes shed their entire old skin all at one time.
Before shedding, which has the technical name of ecdysis, the snake grows a skin underneath the old one. All the while, the snake also is wearing out that old skin and growing. The old skin begins to disconnect from the snake's body, including over the eyes. The snake begins to look like a duller, bluish version of itself, and loses its appetite. When separation is complete, a split opens at the tip of the snake's nose and the old skin begins to peel back off the snake, which wriggles and rubs its way out of that old covering.
The old skin is left behind, a real shocker if left inside a human abode.
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