This morning, while prowling about with the camera, I came across my first black rat snake of the season, basking on the drive beside our garage. I reached down and gave it a little tweak of the tail and it responded by curling up into the classic curled aggressive/defensive position. It wanted nothing more than to be left alone in the warm sunshine, but Dad had the tractor out and about and I didn't want it sitting in the road, so I took several pictures and then carried it off to the side and shooed it out of harm's way. It wasn't until looking at the downloaded pictures that I realized there was something odd about this snake: it has no tongue.
UPDATE: I've been informed that snakes can retract their tongues all the way back. It just looks wierd, I can't recall having an encounter with a snake that didn't, at some point, flicker the tongue at me. I took 46 shots, not one of them shows the tongue.
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