![]() It’s the same for snakes: some tips may be useful for distinguishing between two specific species, but that same tip may not be useful for distinguishing a snake from all other species.”* A cottonmouth, (Agkistordon piscivorus).Photo © Matthew Paulson / Flickr Cottonmouth or Copperhead? Focusing on specific features may be helpful when you are first learning your snakes, but they should be considered only one step toward achieving the ability to identify them.Īnother important thing to consider is that Uncle Michael’s mustache is probably useful for telling him apart from Aunt Rochelle, but it is not a useful tip for distinguishing him from all the other people in the world. You would not measure the length of Uncle Michael’s mustache to figure out who he is or examine the color patterns of Aunt Rochelle’s highlights before you gave her a hug you just look at them and you know who they are! Identifying animals is similar once you know them well enough, you can recognize them at a glance. I like to make the analogy that recognizing snakes is a lot like recognizing family and friends. We can talk about general patterns, but these are just rules of thumb and may not even be relevant depending on what snake you are looking at or where you live…. I know we want to be able to define a venomous snake based on the shape of its head, or the way it swims, or the order of the colored bands on its body.īut nature is too complicated and messy for reliable shortcuts. I understand why it is tempting to gravitate toward quick and easy ways to learn. “…people are always asking me for shortcuts when it comes to identifying snakes, particularly when it comes to distinguishing between venomous and nonvenomous species. As a primer, here’s how I introduce the section about snake identification in my book. In this post I am going to explain how to distinguish copperheads and cottonmouths from each other as well as from a variety of other species. In fact, I recently turned the most common myths and misconceptions I have heard about snakes into a book: Secrets of Snakes: the Science beyond the Myths. I’ve been called the Best Biologist on Twitter because I spend a lot of time there identifying snakes for people in many cases this requires me to tell them that no, the snake they found was actually #NotACopperhead. Photo © Bradley O’Hanlon, Florida Fish & Wildlife / Flickr A great example of copperhead camouflage. Coral snakes are pretty distinguishable, and so are rattlesnakes (thanks to their rattle), so cottonmouths and copperheads represent the only other potentials when it comes to venomous snakes in the United States. Also, many people tend to err (or panic) on the side of caution and believe that just about any snake they see is a venomous one. For one, copperheads and cottonmouths benefit from high name recognition, much more so than, for example, the southeastern crowned snake or striped crayfish snake. I think there are a couple different explanations for this phenomenon. But regardless of their true identities, many snakes are likely to be mistaken for just a handful of widely-known species, like the copperhead and the cottonmouth. In Georgia alone (where I live), you can find more than 40 different species of snakes and they come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and habits. Snakes are some of the most frequently observed animals around us and we are fascinated by them you might think we’d be pretty good at identifying these common reptiles by now. ![]()
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