Louisiana Snake ID helps clear up misinformation
From head shape, to pupils, to “more dangerous” babies, and even mothballs, chances are you’ve come across wrong information about snakes and didn’t even realize it. This misinformation often perpetuates people’s fear of snakes, even if they haven’t actually encountered one themselves. In this article, I’m going to debunk some of the most common myths out there that are often passed down or shared on social media by people who think snakes are evil and out to get us.
Head shape
Let’s start with quite possibly the most common myth, and one that often gets harmless snakes killed. As we discussed last time, all native snakes are extremely beneficial, both venomous and nonvenomous, but unfortunately they’re often lumped into one group because of how prevalent this myth is. Have you heard that you can tell if a snake is venomous by simply looking at the shape of its head? If you haven’t that’s awesome, but more often than not people will quickly and confidently say that you can identify a venomous snake because their head is shaped like a diamond/arrow/triangle.
While our native pit vipers (cottonmouths, copperheads and rattlesnakes) do technically have a diamond-ish shaped head, what most people don’t know is that when snakes are scared, they flatten their bodies to look as big as possible. When they do this it makes their head flatten into a diamond/triangle/arrow shape. This defensive mechanism unfortunately gets harmless snakes killed because of the myth of head shape.
A quick tip to differentiate between a venomous pit viper and a harmless snake is that if you can see the eyes from the top of the head, it’ll be a nonvenomous snake, whereas with a pit viper the eyes won’t be visible from the same view. You can see this in the picture with two harmless diamondback watersnakes on the bottom and two venomous cottonmouth water moccasins on top.
Pupil shape
If you were unaware of the head shape myth, you may have still heard of this one. People will often claim you can also tell a snake is venomous by looking at the shape of their pupils. The myth is that “cat eye pupils = venomous” while “round pupils = safe,” but this too is not a safe and reliable method of identification.
Snake pupils, like ours, cats and other animals, capture light, so in bright light, elliptical pupils will remain small but in the shade or evening light, the pupils will dilate, or “round out,” to capture as much light as possible, making the shape unreliable. Another reason pupil shape isn’t reliable is because snake pupils are tiny! You’d have to get entirely too close to a snake that you’re obviously unsure about in order to look at the pupils, so please don’t do it.
Lastly, many highly venomous species around the globe, like cobras and mambas, have round pupils, while our venomous coral snakes in the US have both round pupils and round heads. Other nonvenomous species, like pythons, have both cat-eye pupils and diamond shaped heads.
Baby snakes
Another myth is that “baby venomous snakes are more dangerous because they can’t control their venom, and will DUMP all their venom!” This one can be debunked a few different ways. 1. Juveniles are fully capable of controlling their venom from birth. 2. Juveniles have only a fraction of the venom of adults because venom is only in the head of the snake. 3. Venomous snakes rely on their venom to get food, so they don’t go around wasting it on us. They only bite when they feel they have absolutely no other option to save their own lives.
More myths
Have you heard that you can spot a cottonmouth because they always swim on top of the water and other snakes swim submerged? You guessed it, not reliable either.
Venomous and nonvenomous snakes can swim on top or fully under water as they choose. In fact, a favorite food of cottonmouths is fish, which obviously spend their time under the water. If you’re on a bank or in a boat, snakes will often come closer to see if you left behind injured or dead fish or bait so they can snag an easy meal, they don’t want anything to do with you.
Lastly, let’s talk mothballs and other “snake repellents” and why they don’t work! Snakes smell with their tongues, not their nostrils. Their highly sophisticated tongue tells them only a few essential things, if predators or prey are nearby and whether they’re to the left or right. Snakes are physically incapable of smelling mothballs, which are actually highly toxic and illegal to be placed outside because they dissolve and poison the drinking water for all animals.
Snakes are nature’s best pest control and truly are an outdoorsman’s best friend.
