North American Brown Snake

While working in the back yard at the House of Blue Flowers in Alcoa, Tennessee, my sister Laquita found this little fellow lounging in the sun. After capturing it to lay it out on the patio table for a closer look, we gathered around to take pictures for further study. Ranger Ricardo took this image. After the photo op, the snake, about ten inches long, was released to go his merry way. Research online using the photos taken as comparative analysis identified this creature as the common North America brown snake.

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From the Wikipedia article:

Storeria dekayi, commonly known as the brown snake or De Kay's snake, is a small species of colubrid snake. It is native to Southern Ontario and Quebec, most of the eastern half of the United States, through Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and possibly El Salvador.

Dorsally it is brown to gray with a lighter center stripe bordered by small black spots; ventrally it is lighter brown or pink with small black dots at the ends of the ventral scales. Adults usually measure less than 12 inches (30 cm), but the record size is 19 2⁄8 inches (49 cm). It has keeled dorsal scales, and no loreal scale.

It eats earthworms, slugs, snails, and most other small insects.

The specific name, dekayi, is in honor of American zoologist James Ellsworth De Kay (1792–1851), who collected the first specimen in Long Island, New York, while the generic name, Storeria, honors zoologist David Humphreys Storer. This is the only North American snake whose binomial is a double honorific - that is, both the generic name and the specific name honor people.