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By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff WriterSnakes holding up a Land O'Lakes development are black racers, not protected indigos.
LAND O'LAKES - The blue snakes that delayed construction of a Pasco County housing development turned out to be black impostors.
Five months after a biologist reported spotting and photographing two rare indigo snakes on the 465-acre Dupree Lakes property in Land O'Lakes, a second opinion revealed the reptiles were everyday black racers.
Indigo snakes, listed as "threatened" by the federal government, are bluish black and run up to 9 feet long. They're the biggest nonvenomous snakes in North America. Black racers top out at about 5 feet. They're plentiful in Florida.
"As it turns out, the snakes had been misidentified," said Linda Smith of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's St. Petersburg office.
The snake mixup has cost developer Beazer Homes about six months of sales at Dupree Lakes. After indigos were reported in October, the company had to stop clearing and grading forests, fields and orange groves between Hale Road and Ehren Cutoff.
The bulldozers, scrapers and wood chippers arrived on the site again last week. And the company, unable for months to answer questions about when it would build the first of its 669 homes, announced Dupree Lakes would arrive in the "summer of 2005."
A company Web site lists 13 house models, but Beazer has yet to finalize prices in what has been a fast-appreciating housing market.
The snake issue reared its head last summer when a wildlife survey reported no indigos. Pasco County biologist Bob Tietz wasn't sure they checked closely enough. He urged the surveying team to return.
The property is catacombed with gopher tortoise burrows. Indigo snakes often inhabit old burrows. In October, on the second go-round, the wildlife team photographed what it thought were indigos, capturing one in a trap.
Beazer was faced with the prospect of having to set aside prime building land as snake habitat. So the Atlanta developer sought a second opinion. The followup report came back negative. They weren't indigos, but they were black racers. Fish and Wildlife concurred.
"We're happy, too," Smith said. "It means we're not having indigo snakes taken as a result of the project."
Tietz praised Beazer officials for their cooperation through months of delays that ought not to have been.
"They have been real nice about this, considering how much money is on the table," Tietz said.