Photo © Bradley O’Hanlon, Florida Fish & Wildlife / Flickr
A great example of copperhead camouflage. Coral snakes are pretty distinguishable, and so are rattlesnakes (thanks to their rattle), so cottonmouths and copperheads represent the only other potentials when it comes to venomous snakes in the United States. Also, many people tend to err (or panic) on the side of caution and believe that just about any snake they see is a venomous one. For one, copperheads and cottonmouths benefit from high name recognition, much more so than, for example, the southeastern crowned snake or striped crayfish snake. I think there are a couple different explanations for this phenomenon. But regardless of their true identities, many snakes are likely to be mistaken for just a handful of widely-known species, like the copperhead and the cottonmouth. In Georgia alone (where I live), you can find more than 40 different species of snakes and they come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and habits. Snakes are some of the most frequently observed animals around us and we are fascinated by them you might think we’d be pretty good at identifying these common reptiles by now.
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