I turn to face her.
"A what?" I see she's pointing to the rocks that line the side of the porch and, sure enough, a snake roughly 15 inches long is draped like a string across the largest one.
"It's weird, isn't it? For a snake to be out at night?"
At this point, we're both crouched on the edge of the wood flooring, me on my knees, leaning my face out over the space between myself and the young snake.
"It's definitely a copperhead," she reasons. "See the bow-tie pattern?"
"I've never seen one," I respond.
Copperheads are one of the three species of poisonous snake indigenous to Pennsylvania. Earlier in the spring I mentioned the black rat snakes we'd been seeing, which itself is a non-venoumous snake. So, for your viewing pleasure and knowledge, this is what a copperhead looks like:
Photo courtesy of Jeff Kubina and venomoussnakes.net
6 comments:
I nearly stepped on one hiking in Gambrill Park in Maryland. Well, I was hiking, the snake was just hanging out. When I was telling the story, several people asked "didn't you smell it?" Apparently, copperheads smell like cucumbers. Did you notice a scent?
Really? You know, I wasn't so much paying attention to the smell. It's possible that it did! That is so interesting... next time I see one, I'll definitely take a whiff!
I have read that young rat snakes may have colloration similar to the copperhead. Makes me hesitate when trying to identify one of these.
Thanks for saying so Ben--I had wanted to look at the eyes, but it was too dark and I didn't have a flashlight nearby. Do you know which snakes usually look most like a copperhead?
I did a little searching and I came up with this neat website. I guess the Northern Water Snake and the Eastern Milk Snake look a lot like the copperhead. I really wish I'd gotten a closer look, but closer isn't always better!
That snake was waayyy bigger than 15 inches!
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