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- A copperhead on a gravel background stands out in sharp relief
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- A copperhead on dead leaves is well camouflaged
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- The copperhead is a beautiful snake whose outline is broken up by cross bands
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- Notice the famous heat sensitive pit organ between the eye and nostril
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- The northern water snake is somewhat similar to the copperhead
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- The head of the northern water snake lacks an elliptical pupil and pit organ
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- The milk snake is blotched rather than banded and very thin in comparison with the copperhead
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- The head of the milk snake is quite different from the copperhead
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- This juvenile black rat snake is blotched and only vaguely resembles a copperhead
On a recent bike ride along the New River Trail in VA I was more or less in auto-pilot and was paying less attention to my surroundings than I should have. My biking companion Mason suddenly shouted that he had run over a copperhead ! I was shocked that I had been so careless to have not noticed the rare snake and also doubted that it was really a copperhead. Humans have a very strained relationship with snakes and often misidentify them. But to my surprise and delight, it was indeed a copperhead. Against the gravel background of the trail the copperhead stood out in stark relief. When I moved it off into the adjacent leaves it blended in magnificently. Aside from a very beautiful camouflage pattern, copperheads have an elliptical pupil and a distinctive pit organ between the eye and nose. This is a most remarkable sensory structure that allows for the snake to detect infrared radiation and to distinguish a tiny difference in temperature between an object and the background. This seemed to be a female snake that was gravid, so I am hoping she did not suffer serious damage from being hit by the bike tire.
Although copperheads are venomous, they are not generally lethal. But what are some other local snakes that might be confused with copperheads? Probably the number one common snake that is often misidentified is the northern water snake, which is blotched, but has a very different look or “giz” and lacks the vertical pupil and pit.
The milk snake is also blotched but is much thinner and has a very different head shape. Some other blotched snakes are the juvenile pilot black snake and the black racer (not shown). Both have a much thinner shape than young copperheads and lack a yellow tail tip.
So why do people have so much trouble distinguishing the dangerous copperhead from a number of common non-venomous snakes? Partly it is a matter of unfamiliarity and inattention to detail. The differences are quite clear and perhaps many people simply see any snake as a danger and kill it. This seems to be a learned response since babies show no fear of snakes. Let’s try to teach our kids and grandkids to show more respect for a beautiful and rarely seen member of our biosphere.
