Definately not a yellow rat or a great plains rat. Pretty little thing whatever it is,. glad you put it back in the wild to live in his natural home though. He's adorable!

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

It looks like my Garter snake lol, but a diff colour. but I know its not a garter

I agree with Donna, its definately no garter snake. The flame is a northern color phase of the eastern garter snake, it wouldn't be found in Texas, but if you lived in Canada you might see one. The other red phases live in California. I am dead set on a brown snake. It looks identical and is the right size and in the right part of the country. Brown's are somewhat similar in appearance to garters, but still recognizably different.

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"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

I hope he stays in the garden so you can watch him grow up ...
HEY!! Throw some thawed feeder mice out there and maybe he will stay! lol

The pattern and color are a dead match for a flame garter I saw at a show. However the local isn't right therefore it may not be.

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Here we go. Found some websites with brown snakes. Brown snakes, as their name implies, are brown, but the shade of brown varies extremely from nearly gray, to nearly red, like Marsha's. I haven't seen many pics of them so red thouhg, looks like you found a special one! If you look at the pics in these links though, the snake looks the same, just a duller color in the links.

http://www.houstonherp.com/TxBrown.htm

http://www.herpnet.net/Iowa-Herpetol...own_snake.html

http://www.geocities.com/eriks_snake..._d_texana.html

Ok, thats enough links. There's too many out there.

lol, I'd give a lot for a flame garter too!

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"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

My guess is a garter snake as well. Beauty of a find!

Dave

I dont want to disagree with Jay if he's right (he probably is), but if we're still unsure, I still say that it's a subspecies of American Rat Snake. It'd be cool to have a vet take a look at it.

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I'm still going with brown snake. The color, pattern, size, and location all match perfectly. And just look at the markings on the head and neck, they're a dead give-away.

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"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

I think it looks like the first pic in this link, but it was reddish brown.
http://www.geocities.com/eriks_snake..._d_texana.html

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MARSHA

:D I'm smiling because I have no idea whats going on!