[at-l] Indoor wildlife surprise

[charles at uswnet.com (Charles Copeland)]

Are you sure they weren't water snakes?  They look very similar and if you're not getting close to look at markings and pits, they could easily be confused.  My own experience is about the same.  I grew up with a lake as my front yard and thought I killed or saw many water moccasins.  In retrospect I probably didn't - they were brown snakes swimming in the water so we killed them.  I never checked to see if they were pit vipers.

I was telling this story to a friend of mine is a Biology professor at Ga Tech and he told me a story about his experience in Mississippi - near the town of Woodville.  He was researching the distribution of snakes and his group collected about 250 over a period of a few weeks. Only 5 of them were really cottonmouth - the rest were water snakes and an occasional copperhead.  

Charles


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Leslie Booher 
To: Charles Copeland ; at-l@backcountry.net 
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 5:22 PM
Subject: Re: [at-l] Indoor wildlife surprise


Cottonmouths/water moccasins are a southeastern snake species - but they aren't very common.  They tend to stay near the water and love to sunbathe. 
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When we lived in the Mississippi Delta, cottonmouths were everywhere.  When our son was young, he used to go out in a rowboat with his friend.  The friend would try to net turtles, fish, muskrats, and other things.  Joshua's job was to hold an oar to whack cottonmouths, should they appear.

I remember going to church camp along the Mississippi River banks and having cottonmouths there.  I certainly wouldn't rate them "uncommon".  To me, they were ubiquitous.  They were part of the scenery.  

anklebear