Can anyone with experience answer this debate question?

[Kat]

Quite simply, what do adult cornsnakes in the wild eat?

I know that adult cornsnakes in captivity eat rodents, because we train them to, but there is a question as to whether adult wild cornsnakes eat anoles or warm-blooded prey. I was under the impression that in their native habitat, cornsnakes subsisted on anoles through all stages of their life... Am I wrong?

-Kat

[bc_reptiles]

Kat,

My wife and I recently saw a Nature special in which they showed a corn snake crawling up the side of a tree (using the rough bark) to get to a nest of baby birds.

It was my understanding that they would eat anoles, birds, rodents...just about anything they could come across.

I'm no expert, but just like everyone else, I play one on the web.

Brian Miller
BC Reptiles

[Darin Chappell]

Kat,

I saw a show on the Discovery Channel that showed a corn snake curled up on the ledge of a cave, waiting for a bat to fly too closely! I think cornsnakes are the billy goats of the reptile world . . .they'll eat whatever they can get their heads around!

:D

[Rich Z]

Several years ago, I was working at the legislature here in Florida and people there, of course, knew I had snakes. So a guy walked up to me one day and started talking about his baby corn snake he had caught in his back yard a while back. He said it is doing real well and feeding for him. He described it to me, and it certainly sounded like a corn snake, and he seemed fairly knowledgeable about it.

So just out of curiosity, I asked him where he is buying his pinkies for it. He looked puzzled, so I said, baby mice. He still looked puzzled. I said, "You know, to feed your baby corn snake." He didn't have a clue what I was talking about. He told me he just went outside every night and caught earthworms for it and it gobbled them right on down.

Go figure.....

[Tim Madsen]

Cornsnakes are opportunistic feeders and will eat anything that moves, as long as they can swallow it. I once saw one eating a toad in the wild.

[Adrian Reed]

I lived in far south Florida before moving to Las Vegas, anyway, here is a little story.
For those of you not familiar with south Florida, most of the homes have screened in porches because of the mosquito population. My back patio had a screened in porch with a lot of shrubs and bushes planted in cut outs around the pool. I had a healthy population of Jamaican anoles living in these trees. They are an introduced species that runs rampant in south Florida and once again for those of you not familiar with the area, you can not walk two feet near any tree or bush in florida without seeing one of these things, they are literally EVERYWHERE.
Back in the day I used to incubate my eggs in the back patio. Heck, this was ten years ago and i figured that temps that mimicked the natural habitat should work and it worked perfectly.
So, the point is that one of my non-normal (cultivar) hatchlings made a break and went on the lam. I made a half hearted look for it but the odds of finding it were slim and none.
I found that snake less than two years later in the patio and he was 3 freakin feet long subsisting on small anoles. We can barely get them that big with big fat lab raised mice. These animals have an amazing ability to hunt down lizards. By the way, it is highly unlikely that any rodents were available because they are just not that common in the populated areas and my screen porch was 100% escape proof, barring the occasional hurricane that blows through. The anole and bug pop in the patio was self sustaining.
Just a little info from my own experience......Thanks
Adrian Reed

[elrojo]

I read a research paper in college (may try to look it up, but it broke my heart being a corn keeper) showing stomach contents of ??hundred E.g.guttatas. To the best of my recollection, it was far more rodent content than reptile. They were common where I grew up (Carolina Boy that I am) and we certainly had no anoles! There was the occasional pine lizard, but LOTS of agricultural fields and LOTS of mice. I never caught one that turned it's nose up to a mouse, rat, hamster, gerbil, chick, or starling (I had shot with my bb gun). We raised pheasants and quail, and I swear I fed them (very) fresh eggs sucessfully, too. Folks have since told me that seems unlikely, but both black and "red rats" (as I grew up calling them) would take them.

[limey]

I always wondered if corns would mostly be nest raiders in the wild - they seem to be well adapted for it. the snake as a whole is quite slender when you compare it to other snakes (squeezing between cracks and down holes) of a similar size and most seem fairly light (for ease of climbing), not only that but robbing nest would surely be a safe bet. Just an idea what do you guys think ???

[elrojo]

I've seen photos and a documentary clip or two of this behavior, but wonder if it was staged. For the record, I've collected a lot and know others who do (or have) and I'll tell ya, you see them DOR, under wood or construction debris, crawling through brush or fields, sometimes basking. I've never seen one climb, even to avoid capture. I've placed them in tree limbs to snap a photo, and they tend to come down, not up. Not that they aren't strong climbers, (I caught one scaling a concrete wall) in the trees just not where they are often seen. The fresh scent of baby birds in a low bush would certainly change that, but I doubt they ever go very high.
Not that I'd have ever seen one if it was 30 feet in a tree. ;)

[Adrian Reed]

Not to drag out this point but I recall finding a corn snake in a dolls head that someone had thrown into a tree. I used a stick to poke the doll in an effort to remove it ..hate litter..and when it hit the ground, a two foot corn rolled out. After getting back into my skin, I took it home. The area was slated for condos or something so his habitat was about to be dozed. The location was Hollywood FL just south of Ft. Lauderdale.
Thanks.........Adrian

[Darin Chappell]

I saw an episode of Steve Irwin's show once, and he "found" a corn perched high up in some rafters of an old mining shack. The snake was snagging bats as they flew by! Cool, Huh?



Edited portion:

Oooppss!!! Guess I had already posted here before! Oh well, I got my facts straight on this particular thing I had seen this time, so I'll let this post stand in stark contradiction to the "mature moment" symbolized by my previous post in this thread.

:cool:

[CrazyCorn]

I saw that too! I have personally seen a corn eat small fish.

[CrazyCorn]

No, frogs = Parasites.

[elrojo]

Has a cornsnake ever been seen catching a bat on the fly? I could see them climbing up and eating the bats at rest, but I always figure Irwin's shows are staged and exaggerated, so questioned that episode. I know other species (some boids) are known "bat-snaggers," just wondering if there is any proof of corns doing so... :grabbit:

[Skye]

Recently I've been trying to look up in various places what they eat too and I came up with rodents, birds, lizards, frogs and frogs eggs. Having never liked in corn-territory I've never seen one in the wild so I have never observed any of these.

[Cindy]

Skye, Frogs Eggs? do you mean frogspawn ?(as we know it in the UK) thats amazing!

[CAV]

do you mean frogspawn ?(as we know it in the UK)

You aren't referring to a child of French decent are you?? :roflmao:

[elrojo]

Frogspawn... HA HA HA... I AM LOL as they say. Ahem. I've offered a lot of things to small cornsnakes in my days. Tree frogs (eaten), toads (not), crickets (eaten sometimes), but tadpoles?!? (not small people from Poland, mind you) are one thing I don't think a corn would eat in it's most starved moment. And the slimy eggs they leave in my garden pond?!? I don't even think the French would eat those. Just my two cents...