By Pat Morse, Assistant Chief of Interpretation
Park visitors are sometimes surprised and startled to see a large black snake resting on a branch up in a tree. Black rat snakes are excellent climbers and can even climb a large mature tree trunk without branches. They are Ohio’s largest snake, typically four to six feet in length but have been reported up to eight feet. Juvenile snakes have a pattern of dark blotches, but as they age they become glossy black all over with a white throat and chin.
Black rat snakes are nonvenomous. They are constrictors and suffocate their prey by wrapping around them and squeezing with powerful muscles. As their name indicates, they prey on rodents like mice and chipmunks, but also eat juvenile rabbits, songbirds and bird eggs. They have been known to devour several nests of eggs in purple martin colonies.
Pilot
A female rat snake lays 12 to 20 eggs in late spring, which hatch in late summer. The lifespan of a wild snake is 10 to 15 years, but in captivity they may live up to 30 years. Typical predators include hawks, other snakes and humans. They spend the winter in groups with other snakes in a rocky crevice, called a hibernaculum. Warm early spring days can find rat snakes sunning themselves, often up in tree branches.
Black rat snakes are misunderstood and often the victims of ignorance and fear. They are generally timid and try to avoid confrontation. Their initial defense is lying still or moving away, but they may also coil up, rattle their tail and strike (acting like a rattlesnake). As a last resort, they can emit a foul-smelling odor to scare away predators. They are an important element of the ecosystem and play an essential role in controlling destructive rodents.
Pilot is housed in a permanent enclosure in one of Penitentiary Glen Nature Center’s classrooms, which has vines for climbing, a substrate he can burrow into, a heating pad and humidifier to help keep him comfortable and healthy. We acquired him in 2016 as a juvenile snake and he is now about five feet long. He is fed pre-killed mice and rats. Another common name for the black rat snake is the pilot black snake, derived from the superstition that this nonvenomous species led the venomous ones to the hibernaculum–this is where Pilot gets his name.