Smitten by snakes: Brown house snake, World’s top pest controllers

Issued by Rian Viljoen

(Rian has been working with reptiles for 22 years, and is always available for relocations, reptile-related help, or just to chat snakes.)

You wake up late at night, you’re a bit thirsty, and without even thinking, you forgo your stokies, and walk down the passage in the dark towards the feint glow of the kitchen.

No need for lights, you know your own house quite well… So do other unwanted residents. Rats and mice are raiding your pantry and cupboards, and bats are making roosts in your ceiling.

You open the fridge door, and grab a bottle of water, the sudden spill of light catches an iridescence moving against the far wall.

A long brown pest controller is on the job. He’s got his prey in sight, and very little is going to get in his way.

The light dims as you close the fridge door, and you slowly yawn your way back into bed, and fall asleep, while in the distance, a feint squeak sounds the end of a pest’s reign of disease spreading and destroying.

Very few people will ever know the battles going on in their own homes. Yet, you are perfectly safe… Only a few more to go, and the best pest controller in the land will have eradicated it’s targets, and move on to the next call of duty… Without you even knowing it was there.

The Brown House Snake (Boaedon capensis) is probably one of the most common snakes in and around houses. Attracted (and adapting well to built up areas) by the rodents and other prey that abound around human dwellings, they are the perfect animal to have around.

They are a nocturnal species, only coming out when the conditions are right, at night. Hatchlings and young snakes eat small lizards and geckos. As they grow, they move onto rodents of various sizes, and even have a penchant for bats in some instances. Their voracious appetite affords them a place in the reptile world’s top pest controllers. Biting readily when first encountered, they do nothing more than allow a few pin pricks of blood to ooze out for a few seconds (I have personally taken hundreds of bites, and have never even felt so much as an itch).

Ranging in color from a light yellowy biscuit color, to almost completely black, along with patterns and stripes (or none at all) along their body. Their pearl white bellies shine in light, and they are readily and always identified by the off-yellow/white stripes that run from the nose, through the eyes, and sometimes onto, and down, the front half of the snake’s body.

Growing on average to around 70-80cm, some growing to just over 1m, they can look formidable and scary. Completely harmless, unless you are a small rodent, they are a boon and a joy to have around the house, and are needlessly persecuted wherever they are found.

Using old building rubble and rubbish lying around to hide in or under during the day, they have adapted well to the urban lifestyle, and instead of being killed, they should be allowed to control the problem pests we have attracted into our living areas. They are so vital to the control of pest animals, and are matched by few in this regard. Next time, we will look at some more misunderstandings of these amazingly designed predators.