The Tale of the Dreaded Orange Krait.

The indigo snake (Drymarchon corais) hunt, or, why do you find an orange krait (Bungaris aurantiacus taeniatus) in the everglades? Good question to pose to the future Conservator of Reptiles for a major zoo.
Fred had to collect some snakes for the zoology lab and I had time to kill so we went together in his old VW van. (Recall the Ani incident). We got down past Homestead and on the left side of US 1 was a vast area of hammocks and a web of old drainage ditches. These ditches were dug in the 20s as part of a development scheme, and were never completed (economy collapsed). Each ditch had a road next to it (the contents of the ditch) and these roads were overgrown with vegetation, including an invasive called Australian pine (Casuarina equisetifolia). Great habitat for various snake species. The hammocks were easy to reach from these roads and were also great habitat for snakes. They were also home to the native vanilla orchid (Vanilla barbellata) and I wanted one of those. We rounded out the group with 2 other grad students, names forgotten long ago.
We parked and walked half a mile or so on one of the roads, picking up a few water snakes along the way. Then we headed out into the wet marsh to get to the nearest hammock. There we spotted a BIG BLACK snake and jumped on it. What a prize. The four of us all held it and it must have been 8 feet long or longer. A prize Indigo by any measure. Instead of keeping it, though, we fondled it for awhile and then released it. The right thing to do and made us all feel like real conservationists.
On the way out we passed a pile of crap dumped by one of the many orange grove owners in Homestead that included several broke crates.
When we got back to campus, we were telling the soon-to-be-curator about the trip and I casually mentioned that we also saw an “orange crate” and he went ballistic. “Must have escaped from the Serpentarium! Let’s go back now and catch it!” I said “Great. Let’s go. There were also some grapefruit crates and one lime crate as well.” Got him!! Embarrassed by and before mere grad students. This is the SOB that fed my corn snake to a king snake by “accident” the week before. Ha. The best part? I made up the snake and name. There is no “orange krait”. Even better.

Image: http://www.snakeeducation.com/Snake%20Photos%20for%20all.htm