Help--What type of snake?

[snccoulter]

First off no i dont have a pic. My wife called me today and she dont like snakes and she saw on it the backyard while the kids were playing she says it was 3 feet long so i am guessing closer to 1.5 feet:haha: Iit was black with a red stripe kinda corkscrewing along its back. I am guessing it was a gardner snake but i did not see it. there was no yellow on it like the gardner snakes i am use to and i cant find anything on the net that would fit the bill. I spacifically asked if it was banded so it does not seem like it is a King snake do you have any ideas????

[BruteForce]

Milk Snake or variant of Garter Snake? Red and Black, friend of Jack. Red and Yellow, kill a fellow.

[ststephen]

Milk Snake or variant of Garter Snake? Red and Black, friend of Jack. Red and Yellow, kill a fellow.

Well that saying is to help differentiate King and Coral Snakes. They are banded, not stripped. That is the lines go around the body and not down the length.

Funny story about King vs. Coral: We have no Coral Snakes in NorCal (nor Utah for that matter). But they are found in AZ, TX and Mexico. I had some local migrant workers pulling weeds in my yard last year and I found them all upset about a "muy peligroso serpent". I tried to explain that our King Snake is harmless but they were not convinced. Of course, they were probably used to living amongst deadly Coral Snakes so I wasn't going to push the issue.

Wikipedia link on Coral Snakes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_snake)

[Iceaxe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXf_l93c6JM

[snccoulter]

When i ogt home i found out the truth it was about 1.5 feet and it did have a stripe down the back in red so it is a gardner snake thanks though

[Sombeech]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xepW0UdHEw0