Florida Green Watersnake vs. Northern Cottonmouth

Northern Cottonmouths meet the Florida Green Watersnake in the swamps of the Georgia and South Carolina coast. A: A long head, round pupil, no pit; a row of small scales between the eye and the lip in the Florida Green Watersnake; a broad, flat, wedge-shaped head much wider than the neck, with a heat pit and a dark mask in the Northern Cottonmouth. B: Plain greenish-brown, no bands in the Florida Green Watersnake; dark crossbands, often fading to plain black in old snakes in the Northern Cottonmouth. The cottonmouth is venomous: never handle a big, dark water snake you cannot name. It swims with the whole body floating high; watersnakes swim with only the head up.

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

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