Found in central South Carolina in a river floodplain
Good pic. It’s a harmless water snake. I’ll check my field guide to narrow it down to species.
I will believe Crotalus, but with that coloring & arrow-shaped head, my first thought was water moccasin… Would love a lesson on the differences.
I’m positive it’s not a cottonmouth, and 99% sure it’s a brown water snake.
Here is a fairly typical cottonmouth, or water moccasin.
There’s really no easy way to describe how to distinguish these snakes. The first problem is that cottonmouths and most of the harmless water snakes are extremely variable in the amount of pattern that is visible, depending on age, recentness of last shed, whether it is wet. The snake in Earl’s picture has enough pattern showing to eliminate the cottonmouth possibility; the cottonmouth’s pattern is generally crossbands only, not blotches and bands.
Look at the variability in these cottonmouths.
In the southern US, a heavy-bodied brown snake should be assumed to be venomous unless you are confident in your ability to distinguish. It doesn’t need to be killed, just avoided.
I found a snake in my basement a few weeks ago and used this site to ID it:
This is the NC site: http://www.herpsofnc.org/herps_of_NC/snakes/SnakeID/All.asp
Unfortunately, you have to inspect the mouth and belly of the snake very closely which is something I wasn’t willing to do until the thing was IDed properly. Fortunately it was only a rat snake.
Is it a photo of your hips?
That is obviously a Russell’s viper, native to SE Asia, and one of the world’s most dangerous poisonous snakes, possibly responsible for more fatal bites than the cobra. It must be an escaped specimen; better hope there aren’t any pregnant females on the loose!
:dubious:
“Obviously”? Doesn’t look like any of these.
The most charitable thing I can think about this is that it was an attempt at a joke.
He means well. Not his first attempt at irony/sarcasm in GQ, but that earlier one went over really well, too.
Looks like Russel’s Viper, disguised as a Brown Water Snake. Snakes are sneaky, you have to be careful.
Seriously, jokers, cut it out. We lose enough valuable contributors to the food web due to misinformation and unfounded fears. You aren’t helping.
What are you talking about?
There was no hint, vestige, or semblance of irony or sarcasm by me in the other thread linked above. Every word I posted was in earnest. Go back and read it over- good chance you will learn something.
On the other hand I will admit that my first post to this thread was a complete joke, so you are at least batting 500.
Pr even allies against vermin. I can’t count the number of instances I’ve seen or heard of, of people moving to rural/exurban NC, being startled by this big (~5 feet) black snake hanging around the back of their property, and of course kill it before it bites and kills someone, then wonder why they’re having an infestation of rats, field mice, voles, possums, etc., when the neighbors said they never were much of a problem before.
(Hint: they’re called black rat snakes for a reason, and it isn’t as an insult. They’re on our side against marauding rodent hordes.)
Moderator Note
colonial, don’t post deliberate misinformation in General Questions. If that was intended as a joke, it wasn’t the least bit funny. Don’t do this again.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Hate to contradict **Crotalus **; while I agree it’s a ‘water snake’ genus Nerodia, I am inclined to put it in the ‘banded’ group, species fasciata. But being a lumper rather than a splitter, I’m not going to venture a subspecies as I am distrustful of the usefulness of that taxon in this genus.
But **Crotalus **may well be right; I’d like a few more definitive pictures to let us be really sure.
ETA - linkyto one that looks pretty close
I’ve seen and captured non-poisonous water snakes most of my life. We don’t have mocassins around here. I first encountered Moccassins when I started kayaking in Arkansas. I’ve seen maybe ten in my life. Here’s the big differences I noted.
Water snakes swim mostly submerged with only thier heads sticking up. Mocs float on top of the water more.
Watersnakes-more slender, mocs-heavy bodied with shorter tail.
Watersnakes escape as fast as possible when they see you, Mocs stand thier ground and try to psych you out with the open white mouth display (hence the nickname “cottonmoth”)
The heads/faces look different.
Be really careful if you use these as distinguishing characteristics! The floaty - sinky thing is pretty standard in folk lore, but doesn’t stand up in actual practice. After all, the moccasin’s species is piscivorus, meaning fish eater, and catching fish would be pretty difficult if you can only bob around on the surface.
Body mass can be a function of age and food supply as well as a minor difference between species. Large adult moccasins are usually pretty stocky, but a starved individual can be skinny – and dangerous.
I’ve spent an awful lot of time in the field, surveying and collecting these species in southern Florida. I’ve captured literally hundreds of moccasins by wading / swimming in the Everglades in the middle of the night, wearing a carbide lantern (yeah, it was a long time ago!) on my head. Lift them off a hummock of sawgrass with a hook, wade over to a dry place, pin the head, put in bag, lather, rinse repeat. Most all the snakes I encountered either fled or, if I was slow and careful not to alarm them, allowed my manipulations. But I do have memories of being chased out of the swamp on several occasions by fighting mad 5 foot snakes that repeatedly attacked my face. This is especially disconcerting when said face is at water level, and splashing water has extinguished the carbide lantern’s flame. But every one of those instances involved, not a moccasin, but a massive female green water snake.
The heads and faces do look different, but checking for the heat sensitive “pits” between nostrils and eyes is the only truly reliable difference.
There is a definitive characteristic involving the other end of the snake, but it isn’t the length of the tail. Tail begins at the vent. Forward of the vent (toward the head) both water snakes and moccasins have a single row of belly scales. But the ventral scales posterior to the vent in all water snakes form a double row, while the single row continues on a moccasin. This will let you reliably determine whether or not the “moccasin” your buddy decapitated was really a venomous snake. I’ve had to disillusion lots of people over the years who thought they were big, tough hombres who killed aggressive snakes they *knew *were moccasins. Uh-uh, not this one, chump, see the 2 rows of scales?
Variability indeed! A couple of those specimens look remarkably like dogs. 
Not disagreeing with a thing you said! I tried to make it clear that my experience with mocs was very limited. I knew the moccassins could submerge at will but all the ones that I saw were on the surface until they decided to dive and swim away. I’ve never seen a harmless water snake float on the surface like that.
As far as agressive watersnakes…I had this exact discussion on this board once before. Every water snake I’ve ecountered has been timid and quick to retreat. Apparently there are some that stand thier ground! I’ve never encountered one.