Chinese water snake? Garter relative?

[Mommy2many]

In China ,just the same with US .some people fear snakes to the bone and some don't afraid them but also don't like them ,only a minority love this creature.according to the traditional Chinese saying especially north China that snakes are little dragon if you hurt or kill a snake, the snake's spirit won't let you go and you get a bad luck.so in some places of China like my hometown it is a forbidden to kill snake.
Those photos were taken at pet shop.

That explains it! I was born in the year of the Dragon and share a kindrid spirit with the snake!

[ConcinusMan]

Looks terribly crowded. Snakes are probably WC too. Great way for disease to fester.

[houchen]

yeah that is realy a pity,almost every Chinese indigenous snakes are all WC,it is not illegal to collect wild snakes.many people here just don't care about the nature and environment,and the law is not so complete.besides, we don't have any reptile breeders like you do in US,many things are different here.

[guidofatherof5]

many people here just don't care about the nature and environment.

We've got our share of those people in the U.S. and many are in charge.

[ConcinusMan]

America had her economic and industrial boom, and of course, plenty of environmental damage was done. I'm sure it continues, although some laws have been passed to lessen the impact these days. We must also keep in mind, that we have only shifted the pollution and damage over to them. A significant portion of China's garbage and pollution really belongs to America and other rich nations because we are buying the goods that China produces, further driving them to create more garbage and pollution.

If China doesn't wake up and stop devastating the environment, the results won't be pretty. There are species there that are going extinct faster than they are being discovered!

[houchen]

yeah I totally agree, The environment has reached its limit,it is time to change something.but so far saw no good trend.I worry about the future of this country,but according to the report no snake species kown to be extinct until now ,only the number decreased a lot.

[houchen]

admire you have nice and clean environment, the air in beijing is really terrible......

[ConcinusMan]

Like I was saying before, it's not entirely China's fault. We share the responsibility. As far as the snakes are concerned, they really need to do something to stop the exploitation and overcollecting before it's too late.

[aodaisho]

Hello,

As a new comer here I am answering a bit late to this post...
Yes the two first pictures are S. annularis and the last pic from Houchen are a bunch of S. annularis and O. rufodorsata.
The first species can be difficult to adapt to captivity and even if the set up seems perfect they can refuse to eat.On the other hand rufodorsata is a very interesting fellow and will accept invertebrates, fish, etc...
Sinonatrix is a genus which is very similar in lifestyle as the nerodia group...Always in the vicinity of water. Rufodorsata would be more like a thamnophis by nature.
Regarding their status and for answering to Houchen it is now forbidden to catch wild snakes in China...You can still find some people selling them on the market... but in big cities you need to know who sell them.