‘Fling that thang out the back door.’ In NC, snakes are all over social media

What should you do when you see a snake?

Some might say run away quickly, regardless of whether the slithering creature is poisonous.

But first, snap a photo and post it online.

Triangle residents have been posting photos and videos of their encounters with snakes of all shapes and sizes across social media sites.

Some users ask for help identifying a snake. A Facebook group called “Snake Identification,” where people across the United States post photos of snakes they’re trying to classify, has more than 35,000 members.

Others post photos of snakebites or tales of rescuing snakes that had made their way onto busy roads.

“When you turn on the kitchen light and see a foot long baby snake in your kitchen slithering to the door,” Daniel Giles of Raleigh posted on Facebook on April 26. “You first yell, then grab a towel, grab that coiled up snake and fling that thang out the back door. I think I’ll end the night on that. I wish no snakes in anyone’s house.”

Calls about snake bites to the Carolinas Poison Center have nearly quadrupled compared to the same time last year, due in part to a mild winter, officials say.

Copperheads, cottonmouths, rattlesnakes and the coral snake are venomous snake species native to North Carolina. The coral snake is the most rare, while copperheads are the most plentiful. The center receives 10 times the number of calls about copperhead snake bites than calls about all other kinds of snakes combined.

Here’s a sampling of posts from Facebook, Twitter and Nextdoor.com:

This story was originally published May 2, 2017 at 5:31 PM with the headline "‘Fling that thang out the back door.’ In NC, snakes are all over social media."