Can Anyone Identify This Snake?

Discussion in 'Pets & Critters' started by Diane Lane, Sep 21, 2015.

  1. Diane Lane

    Diane Lane Veteran Member
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    This is in a neighbor's yard. No one in my neighborhood group seems able to ID it, and I was hoping someone here could. We get a lot of rat/chicken snakes here, but someone thinks this is poisonous, due to the triangular head. Thanks in advance.
     

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  2. Lara Moss

    Lara Moss Supreme Member
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    That looks exactly like a diamondback rattlesnake but without a rattle. They come in dark gray or brown. Each shedding adds a rattle so when young they are harder to see BUT on rare occasions, a rattlesnake won't have a rattle!…according to the American International Rattlesnake Museum. Here's the page that I quoted:
    http://www.rattlesnakes.com/info/rattles.html
     
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  3. Diane Lane

    Diane Lane Veteran Member
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    The conversation is still ongoing on the neighborhood site, everyone has his/her own opinion about what type it is. I'm glad it's down on their end of the neighborhood, but I've heard them slithering off to the back of my yard, and there are plenty all over here. We do have some rattlers, as well as water moccasins, so you'd think the locals would be able to identify, but they can't. I read on one site that a triangular head isn't a good way to try to identify them, because apparently some are able to somewhat change the shape of their head when they feel threatened, so they appear more menacing.
     
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  4. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    Well, it looks like it is a venomous snake to me, too, @Diane Lane ! If that showed up in my back yard, and I had a gun; I would kill it first, just in case.
    I know that it is bad to kill snakes that are not venomous, but that head looks pretty flat and triangular to me, and I think it would be better to kill one and find out that it isn't dangerous than to let it bite a person or a pet dog or cat, and then find out that it is venomous.
    Of course, I was bitten by a copperhead, and that has made me a little faster to decide not to take chances about snakes.
     
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  5. Lara Moss

    Lara Moss Supreme Member
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    Oh no, that must have been painful Yvonne. Glad you lived through it. I ran over a copperhead 4 days ago with the lawn mower. Never knew it until I saw him laying dead with a hole in his side on the edge of the lawn just after I finished mowing.

    I waited 2 days to make sure he was dead before removing him with a long stick but when I went, there was absolutely no trace of him. I know he was dead. Something got him. Ick.

    What's really interesting is that, his skeletal bones were shiny copper colored in that hole…like thin copper wire. I suspect there are more in that nearby overgrown rockbed of bushes and now I'm afraid to weed….good excuse to hire someone.
     
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  6. Sheldon Scott

    Sheldon Scott Supreme Member
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    That looks like a Water Moccasin, AKA Cottonmouth.
     
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  7. Diane Lane

    Diane Lane Veteran Member
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    I'm also of the when in doubt, take it out philosophy. I need to do some yard work out back, but I'm going to be very careful when I do so, because I know there are some back there. I don't mind the animals, it's the snakes, spiders, and other bugs I don't like.

    That's what one of the neighbors said as well, @Sheldon Scott. Wow, @Yvonne Smith and @Lara Moss I've never seen a Copperhead, but have heard they're very dangerous. I'm not sure if we have them here. Fortunately, the 3 snakes I've encountered up close here have been 1. a baby, and 2. & 3. dead rat snakes.
     
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  8. Lara Moss

    Lara Moss Supreme Member
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    You're right Sheldon but what about that diamond pattern on his back?
     
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  9. Sheldon Scott

    Sheldon Scott Supreme Member
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    @Diane, copperheads are related to water moccasins but are smaller. They are found in wooded areas but also near or in water.

    @Lara, that pattern is typical of water moccasins, but is not always very distinct.
     
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  10. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    The copperhead that bit me was only about a foot long; but I saw one crawling down my driveway that had to be 4-5 feet long, and as big around as my wrist. that things was HUGE !
    We had several ponds out behind the house, and there were water moccasins there; but the only ones that I saw were little ones, and when we saw one, we shot it with the little Snakecharmer shotgun.
    We probably got a few innocent snakes by mistake, but I think that most of them were the water moccasins.
    I always thought that it was the copperheads that we bigger, since that is what I saw that was the largest.
    This makes me glad that I live in town now, and not outin the country anymore. I know that we could still have snakes here; but they do not seem to show up in town.

    There have been a few reports of alligators being found in some of the outlying ponds and lakes though. Thankfully, none of those have turned up in the back yard or our little swimming pool, either.
    image.jpeg
     
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  11. Jenn Windey

    Jenn Windey Supreme Member
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    @Yvonne Smith Can alligators actually climb up a side of a pool like that? Yikes I am glad I do not live in alligator country. I could not imagine what that would be like, every little rustle in the brush. When I went to Clearwater Florida for a visit that was the first time I was even aware that Alligators just wonder around park like areas. I didn't like that.

    @Diane Lane That snake looks somewhat like the Easter Rat Snake, they do get a bit of a diamond pattern on their bodies but for the most part their heads are not triangular. About two years ago I was in the yard gardening and the dog was making a ruckus, She was incessant and hopping around. We usually have very large toads and I was afraid she was after the toads again. She usually manages to kill them if she finds them, so I got up to see what was going on just in time for her to fling this rather large black snake at my feet. The one I saw was Black on top but a wonderful red on the belly. Needless to say I have never seen a snake like that in this part of NY. Normally we have just the plain Garter snakes unless you get closer to P.A. Up on the mountains there are Copper Heads and Rattlers. I forgot where you are located, I was thinking you were in the East so maybe it is an Eastern Rat Snake, but if you are in the South I would say it very well might be a Water Moccasin. This is what an adult Eastern looks like, they get pretty darn big and live near shallow water, small ponds, creeks and drainage ditches. I understand from the Cornell Institute that their numbers are increasing in NY.
    [​IMG] .
     
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  12. Sheldon Scott

    Sheldon Scott Supreme Member
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    The picture Diane showed was not a rat snake. Rat snakes are very common around here and are completely harmless.
     
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  13. Sheldon Scott

    Sheldon Scott Supreme Member
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    [​IMG]
    Water moccasin ( cottonmouth)
     
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  14. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    If you see a snake, just kill it - don't appoint a committee on snakes.
    Ross Perot
     
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  15. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    I worked for the city of Los Fresnos, Texas for six years, and lived there for about twelve. The city has a man-made reservoir, several miles from any other body of water, and there was a chain-link fence around the reservoir. The city received a few reports of an alligator in the reservoir, and then the public works employees found a fairly large alligator. When there are more alligators than an area can support, they will travel several miles overland looking for a new environment, and this one had apparently dug under the fence of the reservoir before growing larger as the only alligator in the body of water.
     
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