would you survive?

[castlecraver]

I understand you're trying to protect yourself and your family, but keep in mind poisonous snakes are doing a lot of good keeping rodent populations in check. Best not to go out of your way to kill them when possible.

Amen. Snakes around my place would be a godsend with the consistent rodent issues we have.

[tim8557]

Here- I hilighted it for easier viewing.

AS USUAL OUCH....BRILLIANT!

[sol92258]

I meant to resurrect this several weeks ago....oh well

[slcsteve]

Sure I found it. It's just to the left and slightly below the brown recluse.

[slcsteve]

How many snakes can you spot in this image?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2663/...54075585_o.jpg

[dmnall]

Fortunately I live in a state that has no poisonous snakes, though I do wonder why timber rattlers don't make it here. I found the copphead after about a minute of scrutinizing the picture. Not easy to find.

Sorry to correct you as a Snake breeder myself, there is no such thing as Poisonous Snakes, there are Venomous Snakes. *Big Difference*, Poison can enter the body through the skin with or with out wounds *poison is absorbed through the skin when in liquid form*, Venom needs to be injected via a hyperdermic needle which is basically a Fang!

I love Copperheads *would love to get into hot snakes* but I don't think I will because that is messing with death right there! Bad enough I mess with large constrictors and that can be staring death in the face lol.

Cheers,
Charlie

[Walter Sobchak]

Awesome. Nature never ceases to be extra cool.

[Phog Allen]

Took me about thirty seconds to find it. Which I thought was pretty fast and believe me gents, that is pretty fast where copperheads are concerned. I think they blend in to their surroundings better than any other snake in North America. I started looking for triangles. That is the only way you can tell them apart from the foliage and if you have maple and oak leaves together you can almost forget about it.

There are regional variations as well. Some are literally copper coloured like a new penny with distinct triangular patches. Others are a generic "earth" tone(including their triangles) and those buggers are REALLY hard to spot when you are tramping around the woods or as the OP mentioned, raking leaves.

I have become sort of paranoid about copperheads because of two incidents. First was in the Ozarks of Missouri in the late seventies. We were cleaning up old lumber and general rubbish around our out buildings and chicken coop and I reached to pick up two 1X6 inch boards that had been laid on the ground. When I pulled them up there were two copperheads not three inches from where my fingers had been. Both were nearly three feet long. The only reason I did not take a lacing was the fact it was in the low 40 degree range. This was late October or early November and what they were doing out of a wintering nest is beyond me. My heart was beating about a thousand times a minute. They were despatched post haste.

The second episode nearly fifteen years ago. My five year old nephew was making like the Crocodile Hunter and attempted to grab a copperhead behind its head. Big mistake. Believe me, no human is faster than a snake strike and they are unbelievably strong for their size. He twisted his head around and injected a full dose of venom into the little boy's finger. Within fifteen minutes his finger was jet black. Of course by this time he is nearly to the emergency room. His arm was swollen, they told my sis he would have his finger amputated and likely his entire right arm. If he didn't die first. Don't let anyone tell you hemotoxic snakes are not deadly. The right size of person, the right dose, etc. It can happen. He did lose the finger but they saved his arm. They were so afraid of shock from a dose of the antivenin they even hesitated to give it to him. Finally the doc just told them straight. This can kill him too. What to do? They gave him several injections of antivenin. He made it but has issues to this day. Don't fool yourselves guys, these things can be dangerous. BTW, a lot of folks that get bit think coppers are menacing. Nothing of the sort. They are so timid they will lay there and hope you walk by. When you step on them or directly in front of them, pow. A rattler will attempt to flee almost from the moment he feels your vibrations in the ground whilst walking. Not so mr. copperhead. He will lay there and hope you go away. Bad juju.

Regards, Todd

[sol92258]

....
The second episode nearly fifteen years ago. My five year old nephew was making like the Crocodile Hunter and attempted to grab a copperhead behind its head. Big mistake....

oh, man....glad that didn't end worse than it did.
last fall I had just finished (what I thought would be) my last mowing of the year, wife and I were sitting on the swing, kids were playing. I looked over and noticed a young mockingbird on top of the fence. Then he hopped down to the ground and start kinda hopping around, flapping his wings like he was trying to fly but couldn't. I kept watching wondering what was wrong with the little fella, then he jumped back up on top of the fence. A few more moments, same song and dance. Weird, I thought. Then I saw my daughter, very still and slowly, inching her way towards the bird, like she was trying to sneak up on it and catch it. She got about three feet away, it didn't seem like the bird cared she was that close.....

Now, in probably the amount of time it takes for you to let go of a hot cast iron skillet, these thoughts/events happened:

*wow, she has really snuck up on that bird
*I still think somethings wrong with it, why hasn't it flown away yet?
*what's she think she's gonna do with it if she does grab it? (she's 7 at the time)
*hmmm, any bird capable of flying would be far away by now, and that one's perfectly capable or it would not be able to get back on top of the 5 foot fence
*something's wrong here...
"AAAAHHHHHHHH! SNAKE!!!!!" my daughter screams, both her and my son jumping in the back of my truck and my wife sprinting to the house

I hop up, and look, and think "geez I really, really hope that's a stick, otherwise that's one big snake"

Big snake indeed, 3 foot copperhead. The whole bird-dance-hop-flap thing was an attempt at scaring the snake away...didn't work, of course. If the stupid bird had just come and told me sooner, the snake would have been dead much quicker

[CraigarTA]

Guess I'm lucky no venomousness creatures are native to my side of the state.
Now the east side is another story

[raisindot]

Dang!

Even with the "cheat photo" it still took me ten minutes to see the durned thing and then I could only make out half of it.

I wouldn't last ten minutes south of the Mason Dixon line.



Jeff in Boston

[RayH]

Found it in about 30 seconds. Tough though. Only because I knew it was there. Wouldn't have thought to look for it otherwise.

[DaveNJ74]

Here- I hilighted it for easier viewing.

[Gaz]

Took close to a minute for me. My pitbull would have found him tho. He would have barked twice to let me know it was there and ran off in the opposite direction.

[rajagra]

anyway, for those haven't great difficulty seeing him, here's a link for you to look at while in the emergency waiting room

Spoiler:

http://s190.photobucket.com/albums/z...snakeCHEAT.jpg

I think he missed a bit.

I spotted the snake right away, but only saw the second half of it after revisiting here.
Having said that, I do see parts of the picture that look like a second snake, so I might be mixing them up. Or just getting paranoid.

Spoiler:

spotthesnakec.jpg

[_JP_]

I found the snake right away, but then I used to live in snake country.

Back when I was a teen, I worked at a summer camp one year. I had an area to prepare for my work station and the involved cutting the long grass that you tend to find out on the prairie. I used a yo-yo (a sickle like device) to mow down the grass and then raked it into piles. Then I started moving the piles off into a nearby ditch. When I flipped over the second pile an uncoiled ratter (a big one!) was sitting there under the pile. It had moved in that quickly under the pile and was only a foot off from my toe. I sprang back and momentarily pinned it with the rake, but it got away. (We wanted to catch one for our nature area.)

Two days later I walked up on another rattler out in the same field. It was a different one because it wasn't as big as the first. Word got around pretty quick for everyone to keep an eye out.

[sol92258]

I think he missed a bit.

I spotted the snake right away, but only saw the second half of it after revisiting here.
Having said that, I do see parts of the picture that look like a second snake, so I might be mixing them up. Or just getting paranoid.

Spoiler:

spotthesnakec.jpg

methinks you're a bit paranoid....I hope
Copperheads don't get much longer than 3 feet, so if I ever saw a 6 foot one, it's just time to declare them the winner and leave

[W_B_K]

That's some good camo!

The only real close call I had with Copperheads was when I was a kid. I moved an old tire that was in deep grass under some shade trees. That uncovered a whole nest of baby Copperheads! Luckily the mommy was not there at the time. I took off out of there in a hurry.

[icedoverfire]

I spent about 15 minutes staring at the photo with no luck. Having my dad and brother look too didn't help. We all had to cheat.
AAND we live in an area where copperheads come out to play every so often....

- ice

[Christopher_loaf]

I'm in NE Texas, so we have all the North American venemous snakes to look out for....

I live in DFW but I was hearing a while back about how in west Texas hog country the rattlers are biting people WITHOUT rattling. Suggestion is that they're evolving to not rattle due to the hogs. Now THAT'S creepy to think about.