To be honest Joe, I didn't know that. Thanks for showing it.
I've never run across one.
If you think about it, ask Jane about her experience with a rattlesnake the time she insisted on going hunting with me.
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OC with snake shot...again
- Thread starter peter nap
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To be honest Joe, I didn't know that. Thanks for showing it.
I've never run across one.
If you think about it, ask Jane about her experience with a rattlesnake the time she insisted on going hunting with me.
Virginiaplanter
Regular Member
Sssssssnakes
Here is a very good on-line medical article on Copperhead bites. Graphic photos.
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/168828-overview
And here is a very good snake identification site.
http://www.snakesandfrogs.com/scra/snakes/scsnake.htm
I came upon two copperheads on different evenings/twilight during the last heat wave. One large adult and one juvenile crossing the trail. On both occasions I had walked past a part of the trail and turned around to go back when the adult copperhead appeared out of nowhere stretched out on the trail I had just walked past. The second time I was hyper vigilant looking at both sides of the trail and saw the small one as he was just coming onto the trail. A jogger had just passed him not more than 5 seconds before and the snake had to have been on the side of the trail.
Here is a very good on-line medical article on Copperhead bites. Graphic photos.
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/168828-overview
And here is a very good snake identification site.
http://www.snakesandfrogs.com/scra/snakes/scsnake.htm
I came upon two copperheads on different evenings/twilight during the last heat wave. One large adult and one juvenile crossing the trail. On both occasions I had walked past a part of the trail and turned around to go back when the adult copperhead appeared out of nowhere stretched out on the trail I had just walked past. The second time I was hyper vigilant looking at both sides of the trail and saw the small one as he was just coming onto the trail. A jogger had just passed him not more than 5 seconds before and the snake had to have been on the side of the trail.
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simmonsjoe
Regular Member
Water Moccasins are DEFINITELY in VA.
I live on the Mattaponi river and have seen them on multiple occasions.
I live on the Mattaponi river and have seen them on multiple occasions.
I don't doubt that at all Joe, but that's about the end of their range.
I spend a lot of time in the chickahominy swamp and have never seen one. My farm is much further south but I don't have any there. They don't seem to like the smaller rivers.
Now going toward the coast is when I do see them. You're right on that tip.
All that may change if it hasn't already. Tempertures are a lot hotter now so they could well move further inland and North. Who knows?
It hasn't been that long that there were no Coyotes in Va...and even though DGIF hasn't admitted it yet, cougars.
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sultan62
Regular Member
Ditto. The 22A-1 was my first pistol, though I gave my Dad the money to get it since I was still well under legal for purchase. I still love it and shoot it just about every time I go to the range. Ammo is CHEAP!
That was one of those "Too good a deal to pass up" things.
I was at Greentops one night and a man was buying a rifle. He wanted to trade it in on the rifle and Donnie said he had too many already.
We stepped outside into my office and $50.00 later I was the proud owner along with 4 extra magazines he had never even loaded. Just the extra factory Mags were worth more than I paid for the whole outfit.
Water Moccasons have never been proven to live north of James river.
You are most likely seeing northern water snakes
DonTreadOnMe
Regular Member
Really...
Sadly, most people dont care and are happy to kill any snake they see and asume it was venomous. I would like to think of us as better than that.
Its not really hard to ID a snake if you bother to learn what they look like, and even when one runs across a venomous snake the best course is to simply leave the animal alone, killing a snake is virtully never needed. Most bites that happen are from people trying to kill the snake...
The venomous snake is alot like us, it carries with it more means than most to defend itself than most, but mostly just wants to be left alone, much like us. They are not looking to pick a fight with you!
Just because we see a snake, we should not look at it as simply a chance to shoot something....or run it over with a mower or car. I think most of us are better than that, or at lest we damned well should be.
Sadly, most people dont care and are happy to kill any snake they see and asume it was venomous. I would like to think of us as better than that.
Its not really hard to ID a snake if you bother to learn what they look like, and even when one runs across a venomous snake the best course is to simply leave the animal alone, killing a snake is virtully never needed. Most bites that happen are from people trying to kill the snake...
The venomous snake is alot like us, it carries with it more means than most to defend itself than most, but mostly just wants to be left alone, much like us. They are not looking to pick a fight with you!
Just because we see a snake, we should not look at it as simply a chance to shoot something....or run it over with a mower or car. I think most of us are better than that, or at lest we damned well should be.
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simmonsjoe
Regular Member
Interesting.
I'm not big on snakes, but I can tell a pit-viper from something like the water-snake.
I saw the thing, therefor its proven to me. Just because your reference hasn't seen it doesn't mean anything. You would need to prove that moccasins can't live here.
Now I wish I'd taken a picture.
I'm not big on snakes, but I can tell a pit-viper from something like the water-snake.
I saw the thing, therefor its proven to me. Just because your reference hasn't seen it doesn't mean anything. You would need to prove that moccasins can't live here.
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simmonsjoe
Regular Member
Pit-vipers are easy to identify.
I do not live in the city, and we are accustomed to snakes. Anything that doesn't look like a pit-viper we leave alone, as snakes are beneficial. We have a few resident non-venomous snakes in the area. One of them is a huge rat snake.
and most non-venomous snakes are also easy to identify as such (in this area).
I do not live in the city, and we are accustomed to snakes. Anything that doesn't look like a pit-viper we leave alone, as snakes are beneficial. We have a few resident non-venomous snakes in the area. One of them is a huge rat snake.
ODA 226
Regular Member
Last year, my wife found a copperhead IN OUR SECOND STORY APARTMENT LIVINGROOM!
Somehow the thing gained entry through an open balcony door. I didn't think copperheads could climb up a building wall and I'm still at an impass as to how the damn thing got into the house.
She slammed the door on it's tail and an apartment maintainance man came and removed the snake. I'll post some pics she took later today.
Does anyone have an idea how a copperhead got into a second story balcony door?
BTW: This is the same balcony that my daughter and I saw a Puma at a distance of 30 feet! Yes! A Puma!
Somehow the thing gained entry through an open balcony door. I didn't think copperheads could climb up a building wall and I'm still at an impass as to how the damn thing got into the house.
She slammed the door on it's tail and an apartment maintainance man came and removed the snake. I'll post some pics she took later today.
Does anyone have an idea how a copperhead got into a second story balcony door?
BTW: This is the same balcony that my daughter and I saw a Puma at a distance of 30 feet! Yes! A Puma!
45acpForMe
Newbie
Hopefully they aren't learning from the brown tree snakes in Guam and coming up through the toilett!
http://www.newsweek.com/1997/07/27/invasion-of-the-tree-snakes-and-other-coming-in.htmlDon Barnett
Regular Member
Holy ^(#)&^!
You are LUCKY that the door caught its tail! Once a snake gets in your house, it is almost impossible to get out, and knowing that a copperhead was hiding somewhere inside would give you no rest.
I have English Ivy in the front of my house and black snakes like to come out and sun themselves on the porch. I have told my family that whatever you do, do NOT let the snakes get inside.
You are LUCKY that the door caught its tail! Once a snake gets in your house, it is almost impossible to get out, and knowing that a copperhead was hiding somewhere inside would give you no rest.
I have English Ivy in the front of my house and black snakes like to come out and sun themselves on the porch. I have told my family that whatever you do, do NOT let the snakes get inside.
simmonsjoe
Regular Member
Damn...
Are you sure you didn't piss off a neighbor? Or maybe a neighbor lost their pet? (would crawling from balcony to balcony be easier?) Or A/C vent etc etc
67GT390FB
Regular Member
see below, if they can climb a tree they can climb to your balcony, particularly if your building is brick or stucco. i have seen black rat snakes go right up the side of a house before.
Northern Copperhead
Taxonomy
Order: Squamata
Family: Viperidae
Genus/species: Agkistrodon contortrix
Description
The average length of adult copperheads is 30 inches (76 cm). They have an unmarked copper-colored head, and reddish-brown, coppery bodies with chestnut brown crossbands that constrict towards the midline. Copperheads are thick-bodied and have keeled scales. There is a temperature-sensitive pit organ on each side of the head between the eye and the nostril. Young copperheads are seven to ten inches (18 to 25 cm) long and grayer in color than adults. They have a sulfur-yellow-tipped tail, but this color fades with age and is lost by age three or four. Copperheads are sexually dimorphic in size. Males have longer tails then females and females grow to greater lengths.
Copperheads are social snakes. They may hibernate in a communal den with other copperheads or other species of snakes including timber rattlesnakes and black rat snakes. They tend to return to the same den year after year. Copperheads can be found close to one another near denning, sunning, courting, mating, eating, and drinking sites. They are believed to migrate late in the spring to reach summer feeding territories and reverse this migration in early autumn.
Males are aggressive during the spring and autumn mating seasons. They try to overpower each other and even pin the other's body to the ground. This behavior is exhibited most often in front of females but this is not always the case. These interactions may include elevating their bodies, swaying side to side, hooking necks, and eventually intertwining their entire body lengths. Copperheads have been reported to climb into low bushes or trees after prey or to bask in the sun. They have also been seen voluntarily entering water and swimming on numerous occasions.
Distribution and Habitat
Overall, this species inhabits the Florida panhandle north to Massachusetts and west to Nebraska. Of the five different subspecies the northern copperhead (A. c. mokasen) has the largest range. It inhabits northern Georgia and Alabama north to Massachusetts and west to Illinois.
Copperheads prefer terrestrial to semi-aquatic habitats, which include rocky-forested hillsides and various wetlands. They have also been known to occupy abandoned and rotting wood or sawdust piles.
Diet in the Wild
The copperhead is a carnivore. Adults eat mostly mice but also small birds, lizards, small snakes, amphibians, and insects--especially cicadas. Copperheads have fangs that inject prey with a hemolytic venom (causes the breakdown of red blood cells) which subdues its prey, making it easy for the snake to swallow it. The copperhead seeks out its prey using its heat-sensitive pits to detect objects that are warmer then its environment. This also enables them to find nocturnal mammalian prey. Adult copperheads are primarily ambushers. When attacking large prey, the copperhead bites then releases immediately to allow the venom to take effect then later tracks its prey. Smaller prey is usually held in its mouth until it dies. They are most active April through late October, diurnal in the spring and fall, and nocturnal during the summer. When carrying young, some females will not eat at all because the embryos occupy so much of the body cavity.
Young copperheads eat mostly insects, especially caterpillars, and use their yellow-tipped tails as a worm-like lure to attract prey.
Zoo Diet
The copperhead is fed mice, rats, and chicks.
Reproduction
Both sexes reach sexual maturity at four years when they are about two feet in length. The breeding season is from February to May and from August to October. Males seek out sexually active females using their tongue to detect pheromones in the air. Once he has located a female, the male begins moving his head or rubbing his chin on the ground. Eventually, after courtship, the male aligns his body with hers. This courtship may last for an hour or more if the female does not respond. After being sufficiently stimulated, the female lifts and arches her tail and lowers the scale that covers her cloaca. Then the male arches his body and tail, everting one of his two hemipenes and mates with the female. Mating time varies; ranging from as long as 3.5 to 8.5 hours. The long mating time could correlate with the fact that females usually only mate with one male per year. During the mating period, males produce a pheromone that makes the female unattractive to other males, which pay little or no attention to mating or just mated females. Females also have little interest in mating after a long, successful first mating.
Females that breed in autumn store the sperm until after emerging from a hibernating site. The length of time that the sperm can be stored appears to differ depending on where it is being stored. If the sperm is stored in the cloaca, it lasts a relatively short time, whereas if it is stored in the upper end of the oviducts in vascular tissues specialized as seminal receptacles it seems to last much longer. Copperheads have a gestation period of three to nine months. They are a live-bearing snake, typically producing two to ten young; larger females produce larger broods. After birth, the female provides no direct care for the young.
Females are ovoviviparous (eggs develop in the body of the female and hatch within or immediately after being expelled). They produce large, yolk-filled eggs and store the eggs in the reproductive tract for development. The embryo, during this time, receives no nourishment from the female, only from the yolk. The young are expelled in a membranous sac and weigh less than an ounce (28 g) and measure seven to ten inches (17.8 to 25 .4 cm) in length
Life Span
The life span of the copperhead is up to 18 years.
Status
No special status federally, however it is listed in the state of Massachusetts as endangered.
Fun Facts
The copperhead has solenoglyphous fangs that can be .3 inches (7.2 mm) in length. The length of the fangs is related to the length of the snake; the longer the snake, the longer the fangs. Even newborn copperheads have fully functional fangs that are capable of injecting venom that is just as toxic as adult venom. The fangs are replaced periodically, with each snake having a series of five to seven replacement fangs in the gums behind and above the current functional fang.
The copperhead is the cause of many snakebites yearly but they are rarely fatal. Bites occur when people accidentally step on or touch the snake, which tends to be well camouflaged in its surroundings. When touched, the copperhead quickly strikes or remains quiet and tries to crawl away. Sometimes when touched, they emit a musk that smells like cucumbers.
They are also known as the highland moccasin because of their highland habitat and the Native American word for these snakes is mokasen.
Source of Information
All or part of this information was provided by the Animal Diversity Web and Museum of Zoology of the University of Michigan.
It appears here with their permission. The original author of this information was John Saari.
For more information, including references, see the Animal Diversity Web account for this species, here:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/ site/ accounts/ information/ Agkistrodon_contortrix.html.
67GT390FB
Regular Member
Also don't forget about the one venomous snake everybody forgets about, the garter snake. Its not deadly or dangerous like a timber rattler or cottonmouth or copper head, but the lowly garter snake was recently found to use a mild neurotoxin to help incapaccitate its prey.
"Garters were long thought to be nonvenomous, but recent discoveries have revealed that they do in fact produce a mild neurotoxic venom[2]
Garter snakes are mildly venomous.Garter snakes are nevertheless harmless to humans due to the very low amounts of venom they produce, which is comparatively mild, and the fact that they lack an effective means of delivering it. They do have enlarged teeth in the back of their mouth, but their gums are significantly larger.[3][4] Whereas most venomous snakes have anterior or forward venom glands, the Duvernoy's gland of garters are posterior (to the rear) of the snake's eyes.[5] The mild poison is spread into wounds through a chewing action. The properties of the venom are not well known, but it appears to contain 3FTx, commonly known as three-finger toxin, which is a neurotoxin commonly found in the venom of colubrids and elapids. A bite may result in mild swelling and an itching sensation. There are no known cases of serious injury and extremely few with symptoms of envenomation."
I knew about the Garter snake. It's old news for people that have made one mad. (Don't ask) They tend to grab on and chew, then the bite starts acting like it's infected.
The one that bit me finally let go but I've read about one that had to be killed and the jaws pried off.
There is a theory that ALL snakes are venomous to a degree. I've had the same reaction from water snake bites. They could have been an infection or a toxic reaction...who knows?
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ODA 226
Regular Member
67GT390FB
Regular Member
oda i may have some good news for you, that snake in the pic looks like a corn snake and not a copperhead. It may just be the poor quality pic but based on it that was not a copperhead. Did you get to see the carcass? did it have vertical pupils or round? see how the snake has distinct spots top and bottom, copperheads spots are continous. also again may be the poor pic but the color looks wrong too.
see this corn snake: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...ge=5&ndsp=17&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:60&tx=107&ty=91
vs this copperhead: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...T2AQ&esq=21&page=1&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0
i think one of your neighbors lost their pet unless you actually saw the vertical pupils and fangs with your own eyes.
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Virginiaplanter
Regular Member
I also vote it's probably a juvenile corn snake although it possibly could be a juvenile black rat snake.
http://www.snakesandfrogs.com/scra/snakes/images/eguttatajuv2.jpg
You will note the first identifiable markings on your snake are rectangular shapes that do not extend around the body. That is the same in the picture above and on some juvenile black rat snakes. Your snake also has smaller spots/blots bellow and distinct from the upper rectangular shape as you get to the rear of the snake, which is more common on the corn snake than the black rat snake.
The copperhead generally has an unbroken hourglass pattern that is thin in the middle and more triangular on the sides.
http://www.snakesandfrogs.com/scra/snakes/images/copperjuv4.jpg
http://www.snakesandfrogs.com/scra/snakes/images/eguttatajuv2.jpg
You will note the first identifiable markings on your snake are rectangular shapes that do not extend around the body. That is the same in the picture above and on some juvenile black rat snakes. Your snake also has smaller spots/blots bellow and distinct from the upper rectangular shape as you get to the rear of the snake, which is more common on the corn snake than the black rat snake.
The copperhead generally has an unbroken hourglass pattern that is thin in the middle and more triangular on the sides.
http://www.snakesandfrogs.com/scra/snakes/images/copperjuv4.jpg
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