Type of snake?

[cyphur]

I catch several of these a year, and have neighbors have me come remove them all the time. Been snapped at a few times, they cannot do any harm. Nasty little buggers if you corner them, but again, harmless, no pain if they try to bite.


I've seen lots of people mis-identify copperheads. They usually mistake kingsnakes for copperheads as well. Pay attention to the copper part, and you should be OK.

[VMI77]

All poisonous snakes have eyes like cats and triangular heads. No other snakes do. That's how you can tell if it's poisonous.

so the belly scale thing is not correct? -- i knew the cat eyes but cant tell has the head is smashed -- think one of the dogs stomped on it and smashed it so couldn't really see or tell from that

It is sooo much easier than that... Forget everything that you may have heard about how to ID venomous snakes by their scales, eyes, head shape, or anything else.

Venomous snakes native to Texas come in only four varieties:

1. Anything with a rattle is venomous and should be destroyed with an unrighteous zeal.
2. Cottonmouth / water moccasin - impossible to misidentify... short, stumpy, thick, dark brown or black colored irritated snake from the hottest regions of hades.
3. Copperhead - again, impossible to misidentify, nothing else looks like it with the tan / light brown body color with dark brown / copper splotches.
4. Coral Snake - Red touches yellow, kill the fellow, red touches black..... kill the fellow.

Anything else is harmless.

I disagree with #1. Snakes have their place in the scheme of things. For the most part, you leave them alone, they leave you alone. They come into the area that my dogs and people habituate they get shot....otherwise I leave them alone.

[VMI77]

I think you can tell by the eyes. Round eyes non poisonous, slanted eyes poisonous, meaning the shape of the pupils. I could be wrong.

OMG Folks! I am not going to take time to look at the eyes that are less than 1/4 inch across to begin with! If it has a large triangular head, it's probably poisonous and can strike you from about 2/3 or more of it's body length. And yes some will chase you! I've seen it happen! The other is the Coral Snake. If it is red, yellow, and black it's either a Coral or a King Snake. if the red is bordered by yellow, it's a Coral Snake and very poisonous, but usually very docile. If it's a King Snake let it be, they (and Corals) eat other snakes. Red and black poison lack, red and yellow kill a fellow.

"Look at the eyes." "Look at the tail." To heck with that! Know your snakes or kill 'em all!

I think it's more like 1.5 times the body length.