How to identify snakes?

Question

I am interested in learning how to identify snakes as I am possibly wanting to work with them as a career, I was wondering if there is any websites that would help me learn to identify snakes for free?

Answer 1

Absolutely, but there are almost 3000 species of snakes, the exact number depending on which papers you are going with. And many of these have separate subspecies and locality populations that look very individual even though they are the same species. My point being, you would do best to start with a smaller group, snakes in the state you live in would be good, so you could also go out looking for them. Or a particular clade say all the subspecies and localities of Boa constrictors (or any other group.



Here is a list of all the snakes (native and invasive) in florida for example...



http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/herpetology/FL-GUIDE/fl-snakelist.htm



Here is a site with good descriptions of all the subspecies of Boa constrictor, as well as the locality populations of each subspecies.



http://www.boa-constrictors.com/en/Boa_constrictor_subspecies



Here is the closest thing to a master list I could give you, but it is completely organized taxonomically by Latin names. If you go to Subclass Lepidosauria, Order Squamata, Suborder Serpentes, (this link should start you there...), you can click on each family and subfamily, then genus and species, and if you read through it it should break down to almost all the most current revisions of all the known species.



http://www.reptile-database.org/db-info/taxa.html#Ser

Answer 2

Well, there really is not a way to just learn to identify every snake in a week, but I just learned from years of learning about them and also personal experience. Watch lots of reptile and herping shows, like jeff corwin.

Answer 3

you should really buy a book about snakes