Post by Sabre52 on Jun 17, 2011 12:22:10 GMT -5
Howdy folks,
Was out for my evening hike last night and I came upon this big boy so I brought him home for photos and released him back into his pond this morning. My wife took the pics as this species is a little rough to handle. Usually she holds and I photograph. This is the species that around here is most often killed as a Cottonmouth but is actually harmless if left alone. This is a nonvenomous Blotched water Snake about three feet long ( average for the species).
Head shots: As you can see, it flares its head exactly like a Cottonmouth/ Water Moccasin and bears a strong resemblance except the eye pupils are round and it has no pits between the eyes and nostrils. Cottonmouths are pit vipers. Cotton mouth also has prominent brow ridges, cat eye pupils, and sort of raccoon markings on the face ( which usually do not show in western specimens)
Note the gape of the mouth is pinker than a cotton mouth but these snakes will bite savagely when cornered ( hence the gloves which I seldom wear when handling snakes) and it's also a fish and frog eater with long teeth so the bites hurt enough initially, that you'd think you had been bitten by a poison snake.
Note the swollen neck in this pic: These snakes have three defense mechanisms 1. Flare neck, rattle tail and bite acting like a poison species 2. Project a really foul skunky stream of stink juice from a gland at the base of the tail ( missed me twice ha ha!) and 3. Upchuck yesterdays meal which in this case was a disgusting mostly digested perch ( Note: when neck swells like this, point snakes mouth away from you!)
Note the pink/ yellow belly on this watersnake. Cottonmouth is brown or black with eastern examples lighter, sometimes kind of banded or checked. Old cotton mouths and water snakes often have obscured marking so are hard to tell apart from a distance though watersnakes swim deep in the water with only the head above water while cottonmouths swim very high in the water with little of the body submerged.
Coiled snake. Boy when you walk up on one sitting like this you want to take a good look because in parts of Texas, the poison ones don't look very different till you really check them out.
Was out for my evening hike last night and I came upon this big boy so I brought him home for photos and released him back into his pond this morning. My wife took the pics as this species is a little rough to handle. Usually she holds and I photograph. This is the species that around here is most often killed as a Cottonmouth but is actually harmless if left alone. This is a nonvenomous Blotched water Snake about three feet long ( average for the species).
Head shots: As you can see, it flares its head exactly like a Cottonmouth/ Water Moccasin and bears a strong resemblance except the eye pupils are round and it has no pits between the eyes and nostrils. Cottonmouths are pit vipers. Cotton mouth also has prominent brow ridges, cat eye pupils, and sort of raccoon markings on the face ( which usually do not show in western specimens)
Note the gape of the mouth is pinker than a cotton mouth but these snakes will bite savagely when cornered ( hence the gloves which I seldom wear when handling snakes) and it's also a fish and frog eater with long teeth so the bites hurt enough initially, that you'd think you had been bitten by a poison snake.
Note the swollen neck in this pic: These snakes have three defense mechanisms 1. Flare neck, rattle tail and bite acting like a poison species 2. Project a really foul skunky stream of stink juice from a gland at the base of the tail ( missed me twice ha ha!) and 3. Upchuck yesterdays meal which in this case was a disgusting mostly digested perch ( Note: when neck swells like this, point snakes mouth away from you!)
Note the pink/ yellow belly on this watersnake. Cottonmouth is brown or black with eastern examples lighter, sometimes kind of banded or checked. Old cotton mouths and water snakes often have obscured marking so are hard to tell apart from a distance though watersnakes swim deep in the water with only the head above water while cottonmouths swim very high in the water with little of the body submerged.
Coiled snake. Boy when you walk up on one sitting like this you want to take a good look because in parts of Texas, the poison ones don't look very different till you really check them out.
