Any WA Snake Experts Here - ID question?

[aussiblue]

I frequently have dugites in (yes my wife bought one inside in the laundry basket and another came in through an open patio door) and around my house in Bibra Lake - we live on the hill near the Freeway interchange reserve. At least we don't have Tiger Snakes - they generally stay down near the lakes.

In any event, while I'm not at all enamoured with having snakes in and around my home as a child I used to live on a farm in the lower south west that overlooked a lake so I am used to snakes and handling them (albeit remotely). I have a snake hook and snake bag I use to capture those that invade so I can return them to the bush unharmed (mutually unharmed I hope).

Last weekend my wife found what I initially thought was yet another dugite (Pseudonaja affinis) in the corner of the carport near the entrance roller door. When I approached with the snake hook and bag it, rather than take up a defensive strike mode as dugites often do, it very quickly climbed up the brick wall pillar of the carport into the rolled up top of the roller door and then poked its head out as if curious. No flickering tongue out to sense the air though. As soon as I opened the roller door it very quickly climbed down and fled into the front garden between the driveway and the fence between my house and the neighbours and slipped out between a crack in the fence and into the long thick grass in my neighbours front yard. All so extremely quickly and before I had time to look like catching it let alone take a pretty pic.

I am starting to think that, while it was the same lime green and black colour as most dugites here, it might instead have been a reticulated whip snake (Demansia psammophis) as:

a) It moved much more quickly than any of the dugites that I have previously caught have done (or perhaps I am just slowing down in my old age);
b) None of the dugites I have previously caught have tried to climb walls;
c) Even when cornered it did not try and strike or raise its head in a strike ready position (this usually makes it easy to get the dugites in the bag as they usually stop and face the bag ready to strike); and
d) Although it was about 1.2 metres long, it seemed much thinner than dugites of similar length.

I didn't get to see if it had a crescent behind its eye (I didn't know that was something I should look for at the time).

However, my Guide to the Reptiles and Frogs of the Perth Region Brain Bush, Brad Maryan, Robert Browne-Cooper and David Robinson UWA Press 1995 suggests that the whip snake is uncommon in the metro area and mostly found north of the Swan River on coastal dunes, sand-plain supporting heath and banksia woodlands and it would be rare or uncommon to find one in Bibra Lake. I guess the Freeway Reserve might be a sand-plain banksia woodland though. Any views on what the snake was - a fast skinny dugite or a reticulated whip snake or something else?

[bungarra]

sounds like a whip snake or possibly a tree snake that has possibly got caught up on a truck from the north.