My wife found this floating (dead) in the skimmer of our pool today. I wasn’t sure what kind of snake it was and took a picture of it. I’m wondering if it’s poisonous or not.
This is the second snake I’ve found in the pool…the first was alive and a neighbor identified it as a water moccosin.
We’re in New Orleans, Louisiana and I know there are plenty of snakes that are common around here, but we don’t see many in the suburbs, so I have no idea what it is.
Could be. Poisonous snakes have a triangular head (not round) and have slits for pupils (again not round). Some young poisonous snakes, however, may have roundish pupils. Certainly looks similar to a water moccasin (cottonmouth): http://www.pitt.edu/~mcs2/herp/snake.pics/cottonmouth.jpg. However, neither the head or pupil is right.
I concur that it’s a Diamondback Water Snake ( a species frequently misidentified as poisonous ). It’s the only one in that range that works. One possible confirmation ( if you still have the carcass ) is to look on it’s chin - if it was a male it will have a bunch of little bumps ( papillae) scattered there.
While not a bad rule of thumb it is worth noting this is not 100% consistent, even in the U.S., or for that matter even in Louisiana. Witness the Eastern Coral Snake.
Also vertically ellptical pupils ( “cat’s eyes” ) are seen in a few non-( or at least only mildly and rear-fanged ) venomous snakes in the U.S., like the Desert Night Snake ( rear-fanged and slightly venomous ) or the Glossy Snake ( slightly elliptical eyes, non-venomous ).