DEREK GREBNER: Out of place Hognose..

While my father and I were working on a grain bin, we ran the auger that pushes corn out of the bin into the truck. Two snakes were expelled giving us a big shock. I attempted to get a closer look at one and identified it as a hognose snake because of its imitation of the rattlesnake and its upturned snout. I recovered the other snake, but it appeared to be dead, so thinking nothing of it at the time, I tossed the 4 foot, apparently dead, snake into the cornfield.

When I returned home, I checked the Illinois Reptiles and even though the hognose snake is a native, this colour morph was not so. I am 90% sure that this pair of hognose snakes belonged to the western species, which is much lighter in colour than the eastern hognose snake and much larger. The western species has only been reported so far east in Illinois once and is regarded as being exclusive to the western side of the Mississippi River. I returned today to attempt to recover the body for measurements and examination, but the ‘apparently dead’ snake had revived and disappeared. I cannot say 100% that it was a western hognose snake, but I can say that it was a hognose snake by its markings and colouration, but did not look at all like the eastern hognose snake.