{"id":467910,"date":"2026-03-10T14:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T14:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/467910\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T14:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T14:34:09","slug":"rare-black-adder-spotted-by-walkers-in-minsmere-suffolk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/467910\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare black adder spotted by walkers in Minsmere, Suffolk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Adders are one of three species of native snakes which can be found in woodlands and heathland across the UK.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  They are venomous, meaning they inject toxins through their bite.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Males <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eadt.co.uk\/news\/21475789.ssssight-adder-caught-swimming-ipswich-photographer\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">adders<\/a> usually have a silver or grey colouration and females can be copper or brown but both have a distinctive black zig-zag pattern along their backs.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\"\/>Adders are the only venomous snake in the UK (Image: Keith Sowter)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  However, fully black adders have been spotted in some areas, including at RSPB <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eadt.co.uk\/news\/23385003.rspb-minsmere-among-worlds-best-places-watch-wildlife\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Minsmere<\/a> near Leiston.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Keith Sowter was walking around the nature reserve and captured an image of the uncommon snake.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He said black adders have been sighted at the reserve as recently as Friday, March 6.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Adders hibernate through the coldest part of the year from October to March and sleep in sheltered and dry spots.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  At the start of spring, when the weather begins to warm up, adders wake up from their hibernation and can be found basking in the sunlight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adders are one of three species of native snakes which can be found in woodlands and heathland across&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-467910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}