Grass snake or adder?

[Glasstine]

The cat brought it in!

Beautiful cat, by the way! Nice to see a purebred that's allowed out, I think.

Definitely an adder. I would shovel it into a box and ring a wildlife rescue centre to collect it. Wouldn't put back in my garden.

FUCK.THAT.SHIT snakes are my biggest phobia even pictures give me the heebie jeebies!

I’d have run screaming at full pelt and then burned the place to the ground hoping the slithery fucker was flammable!

It really isn’t an adder. The pattern you can see is not the zig zag markings on an adders back, it’s the pattern of a grass snakes belly. You can clearly see the grass snakes distinctive black and yellow neck collar and olive body colour.

Try and get it some vet care.

I also don’t think it’s an adder.

Ooo really?

Well the vet said don’t bring her in unless she seems sick and said but the snake in a bucket and move it away from the house as they like to play dead

Definitely an adder. Can you take it to the vets, might be worth giving the cat a once over too.

We had a cat catch a stoat once which was pretty impressive but an adder tops that!

@Glasstine
Good advice from the vet, that’s exactly what it will be doing. They’re really quite robust animals so as long as you can’t see any visible wounds it will be fine.

She’s caught rabbits, a mole and numerous rats and mice. She’s a fabulous mouser.

I couldn’t keep her inside she’d be miserable

Ah snake is gone!

Either slithered off or buried in the compost. I’m not going to look for it

Very bad photo in the first place, as the underside is showing!. If you look behind the head there will be yellow and the eyes are rounder.
It's a HARMLESS grass snake.

Now 'Smooth Snakes', they are the ones I'm never sure about...

I think it might be a grass snake actually - the pattern that looks like an adders back is actually the belly here. If you look at the back of the snake you see the grass snake markings and the flashes of light colour behind the head as well.

If you have another picture or can take one showing the head and the back of it I can be sure.

Either way they are protected, so don’t harm it in any way. I’d leave it to warm up in the compost heap and sort itself out. Kitty should be fine if they are not showing signs of illness right now.

The markings can look v similar . I think it was a grass snake though ... .. Did you see the eyes ? if pupil was a slit then adder .round pupil would be grass snake.

It looks very similar to this male adder...

www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2018/02/grass-snake-or-adder/

Slightly better photo but I didn’t want to fuck around upsetting it for the right photo

Round eyes!

Grass snake. Look at the back markings and the flashes of colour behind the head. The adder like markings are actually it’s belly.

I think it's a grass snake too. An adder has diamonds hasn't it? And grass snakes love a compost heap.

Having seen this picture, I now concur that it could be a grass snake - I've never seen their bellies before

It is a good picture of it's belly markings, once you realise which way round it is.

This would be my worst nightmare. I’d have left the cat to it and fled the house.

Definitely a grass snake - you can see the yellow ‘collar’. I can understand why the black/white markings on the underside are confusing people onto thinking it's an adder, but I promise you it is a harmless grass snake.

It looks very similar to the grass snakes we’ve got in the garden (I’ve had to untangle them from netting before so get a good look at the underneath), and explains why the cat isn’t bitten - I really don’t think an adder would have let itself be carried round without striking.

Did it stink? Grass snakes give off the most vile oily stuff when they’re scared, you could try smelling the cat...?!