How To Identify Oklahoma’s Snakes – Friend & Foe

If you spend any amount of time outside in SWOK, you're going to cross paths with a snake. While it's best to just avoid these creatures altogether, it's better to know what you're encountering.

You might feel you know the difference, but a lot of people confuse the good with the bad. Primarily in this state, the difference between a cottonmouth, banded water snake, and the rat snake. Just check your favorite Lawton facebook page on any given day, one picture - seventeen different answers.

All the same, there are several non-venomous snakes that people confuse for rattlesnakes... The bull snake, great plains rat snake, or the prairie king snake. One thing leads to another, and someone is chopping heads off these creatures.

Now I'm not being the 'love all nature' hippie, by all means, if you have to kill a snake, kill the snake... But if you don't have to, there's nothing wrong with letting it go along its way. Especially since the non-venomous snakes in Oklahoma make meals of the bad snakes along side rats, mice, vermin, insects, etc... Good snakes are good to have around.

Here's how you can identify your friendly neighborhood snakes in Oklahoma.