1st one for us also. The saying kept running thru my head red touches yellow and kept looking and verifying red and yellow and thought yep, this is the real deal. Had my pistol loaded with CCI Big Four Shot but went for the camera, he wasn’t bothering anyone.
Awesome coral snake, I actually used to have one many years back, they are actually pretty docile for a venomous snake, they are not rear fanged like a lot of people think and they rarely bite, usually people only get bit when handling or stepping on one, the venom is a nasty one though, it a neural toxin, in humans the bite is almost painless but can cause respiratory failure in a couple hours if not treated with antivenom, it's been a while since I seen one, I do see a lot of mountain king snakes near Prescott Az that try and mock the same colors to scare away predators but they are harmless but very attractive snakes as well. Cool pic, thanks for sharing
It could have went bad real fast. It was inches off the trail. I caught him out of the corner of my eye after I passed when it was moving away. I could have easily stepped on it. Maybe I better start wearing my gaiters my wife laughed at me for buying for us for Christmas lol
Beautiful little snake!! Actually they are not that dangerous. They have no fangs, just tiny teeth, and their mouths do not open enough to bite much more than a little toe or pinky finger. Even if one did bite it would have to chew or work it's tiny teeth back and forth enough to break your skin before you could absorb the poison. Almost impossible to get poisoned by one taking a bite at your foot or leg since they can't get their mouths open enough to chew on any but the small extremities. I wouldn't pick one up and tempt fate that it wouldn't bite down on a finger, but I don't fear just being near them. Like stated above, they are fairly docile and don't attack people. They sure are pretty!!
It didn’t show any aggression at all, even when I took the pix, he just froze then shot off in the opposite direction from us. Beautiful colors that the camera couldn’t capture.