HAINES, Alaska (AP) - There are not supposed to be snakes in Alaska, but evidence to the contrary may have been found in Haines.
An 8-inch serpent was found crushed on the side of a road, leaving residents wondering if it was wild or an escaped pet.
The snake was found on Small Tracts Road and is not an ideal specimen. Crushed by a car and found on the shoulder of the road, it's dry, discolored and missing most of its skull.
But stored in a freezer at Haines High, it's soon to be sent to the collections department of the University of Alaska Fairbanks with a genetic sample to be tested in Texas.
Haines herpetologist Tim Shields collected the roadkill reported by pedestrian Bev Schupp on Aug. 18 and said it could be a significant find.
"It could be the first vouchered specimen of a snake in Alaska," he told the Chilkat Valley News. Then again, it could be an escaped pet.
The pattern of lateral stripes, keeled scales and general body proportions likely makes it a garter snake, Shields said.
Haines High School students helped narrow the possibilities by examining the specimen under a magnifying scope and counting diagonal rows of scales at designated body points - a diagnostic tool that indicates the snake could be a common garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis, Shields said.
A certain identification of the species will not be possible until genetic evidence is analyzed, however.
The carcass was in marginal shape.
"Real mashed," Shields said. "It had been there quite some time."
Garter snakes are not unheard of in Southeast Alaska but there's never been documentation.
"It's the first time somebody's gotten a corpse," Shields said.
Garter snakes were reported along the Taku and Stikine rivers in a scientific paper published in 1976.
The locations are not far from interior British Columbia locations known to be within the species' range. The only specimen collected, however, was lost.
"All other attempts to locate this specimen or to document the presence of garter snakes anywhere in the region have been unsuccessful," according to the field guide, "Amphibians and Reptiles of Alaska," which lists the species as "potential."
Another reported sighting came from the Chilkat Peninsula in the 1970s, said National Park Service Trails Specialist Blaine Anderson. He e-mailed Shields the anecdote of a trail worker who reported seeing garter snakes frequently while working in Chilkat State Park.
Shields said identifying the species affirmatively still will not answer whether the animal was wild, an escapee or the offspring of an escapee.
If the animal is occurring naturally in the Chilkat Valley, it should not cause alarm, Shields said.
"Garter snakes are totally harmless and eat garden slugs. It would be a welcome addition to the biota in Haines."
He's still gathering information, however, and urged residents to contact him at the Takshanuk Watershed Council.
"I'd be very curious to hear from anyone who lost a snake," he said.
