Tropical King Snake

I was just reading away in my hammock this morning and decided I wanted more coffee. I, of course, was in barefeet as I disembarked my hammock computer in one hand empty smoothy glass in the other, then stepping over my hammock to slip on my shoes on the other side I turned around only to see a tropical king snake -maybe a foot away from mine- slither from the porch onto the forest floor and disappear into the grasses. I got enough of a glimpse to notice that the black stripes sandwiched the yellow stripes not yellow on black, so I knew it was a coral mimic and not the real thing! Coral snakes are quite venomous, whereas king snakes are relatively harmless yet they mimic the colouration of a coral snake to ward-off predators who don't know the difference.

Here is a picture of another time I saw a tropical king snake in the wee hours of the morning (you can see it is dark in this picture!). These snakes are very difficult to capture on film -they're so fast! But you can see the black on yellow stripes here.