Broad-banded Copperhead vs. Eastern Copperhead

The owner's pair. Range first: the Broad-banded Copperhead lives in central and west-central Texas, Oklahoma, southern Kansas and northern Mexico; the Eastern Copperhead across the eastern United States, from eastern Texas and the Gulf Coast north to southern New England and west to the Mississippi Valley. Outside the hybrid zone where they meet (in Kansas mostly between the Verdigris and Walnut rivers) place alone tells them apart (records share 21 one-degree squares). A: Very broad (7 to 10 scale rows wide) and even, hardly narrowing over the spine in the Broad-banded Copperhead; hourglass-shaped, narrowing sharply to 2 or 3 scale rows over the spine in the Eastern Copperhead. In Kansas the Eastern is found north and east of the Neosho basin, the Broad-banded in the Chautauqua Hills, the southern Flint Hills and Cowley County; snakes from the zone between can be in between. Both are venomous: leave them alone.

Photographs via iNaturalist under Creative Commons licences; the photographers are credited on the sheet.

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