Snakes The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful

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True water snakes never gape. They also lack the dark, heat-sensing facial cavities and vertically slit, catlike pupils of cottonmouths. When swimming, water snakes float with only their heads protruding and keep most of their bodies well below the surface. The cottonmouth typically floats with its entire body buoyed like an inflatable pool toy.

Like garter snakes, water snakes can be interesting to watch. A few yards from my little country house there was a deep pond. Sitting quietly on the bank, I once observed a water snake drag a catfish too large to overpower in the water out onto the shore to suffocate. At that perfect swimming spot I never saw a cottonmouth (which would also be the case around most farm ponds and fishing holes). But my neighbors were convinced both their pond and mine teemed with water moccasins. What they actually saw were water snakes that would periodically arrive after a nighttime trek from a river a half-mile away. This happened only when our ponds’ fish or frog population boomed, and is a normal ecological adjustment that occurs in the small bodies of water found near many rural homesteads.

My neighbors’ mistaken identification, though, is understandable because water snakes resemble cottonmouths in their girth and color. Also, in late summer, water snakes congregate in drying ponds and small streams to prey on stranded fish and frogs. Many chilling stories come from such aggregations being mistaken for a nest of cottonmouths. But cottonmouths never actually “nest” together.

The idea that snakes nest together is among the most common misconceptions about them. I’m always being told about someone digging up a nest of baby snakes. With a few exceptions — such as the eastern diamond-backed rattler — baby serpents go their separate ways as soon as they emerge, never to see their siblings again. What people do find — beneath rocks, or in compost or freshly turned planting soil — are loose assemblies of certain small species of snakes.

Copperheads and Corals

From the edges of this country’s eastern forests to the Great Plains, the Rockies, the southwestern deserts and the Pacific coast, very different complements of snakes occur. Large, yellow-brown, dark-blotched species such as bull and gopher snakes commonly appear around quiet, open country houses. Because they hunt mice, rats and ground squirrels, these docile serpents are an ally in man’s ongoing competition with rodents. Contrary to eco-political correctness, though, snakes seldom exert the major controlling influence you may have heard about, given their slow metabolism and subsequently limited need for food. For the most part, snakes are neither much of a threat to humans, nor a powerful ally. It’s just that there happen to be a few venomous varieties among them.

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