See a snake on the sands of a SC beach in this viral TikTok video. Should beachgoers worry?

A TikTok of a reddish snake curled on the sand in North Myrtle Beach recently went viral.

“Until today, I have never seen a snake on the beach,” the onscreen text read, with the “Mission Impossible” theme song playing underneath. The video, posted by @slowtravelvlog, had over a thousand likes and 200 thousand views in its first five days. View the video below.

The caption asked, “Is this a common thing in SC and NC beaches?”

“That’s pretty rare,” said CCU biologist Scott Parker, who studies snakes. The animal in the video appears to be a corn snake, Parker added.

“Given the habitat that these animals normally occupy, it would be most likely that it would have originated in the upland habitat on the shoreline and crawled down there,” he said.

Parker explained snakes can get washed onto the beach after the rain, venture onto the sand to look for food, or get disoriented after being carried by a human.

“I wish we could have a little camera on it and see how it got there,” Parker said.

If you see a snake on the beach, you should leave it alone. While the animal in the video was harmless, this might not always be the case. In July 2022, a visitor to Myrtle Beach State Park found a venomous canebrake rattlesnake in the surf.

You don’t have to add snakes in the sand to your list of worries at the beach, however.

“Most people might be wondering, ‘is this a new threat from nature,’” Parker said. “Absolutely not. It’s very very rare.”