re: Anyone care to ID this Mr. Noshoulders: really is poisonous

quote:

---

I think they eat toads. Not positive

---

Is there another snake that flattens out and plays dead?

When I described it, my mom said it was a puff adder or something like that. But I distinctly remember that hog nose.

quote:

---

I think they eat toads. Not positive.

---

You're right. The Eastern Hognoses I've had would eat nothing but toads. We had one eat 5 large toads in one feeding, and there was nothing else that he would eat. However, Western Hognoses will eat mice. Bought my kid a baby Western at a reptile show, and it ate pinkies very well.
Mud snakes, in my experience, will only eat eels (amphiumas, but people around here call them Congo eels). We never bothered keeping mud snakes as pets because it was impossible to find food for them. The largest snake I've seen in the wild was at Jean Lafitte Park, right under the visitor center elevated walkway. It was a huge mud snake, and it was eating a giant "eel." I've caught a couple very big rat snakes, 6'4" and 6'6", and this mud snake put them to shame, especially in girth. Couldn't see the full body, but he had to be in the 7' range.