Snakes Alive!

I’ve always had a fascination with snakes, so when I saw this one on the motor of my boat, I was delighted. After spotting this beauty and pointing it out to my wife, she pointed to another one about twice the size resting on the boatlift closer to the water.

Curious to know what kind of snake we were sharing our swimming hole with, I did a little research and was surprised to discover just how similar these snakes look compared to the Western cottonmouth – the dreaded water moccasin. With a little more research, I discovered that cottonmouths are very rare in Indiana and are pretty much restricted to far Southern Indiana. The snakes on our lake, in Central Indiana, are more likely to be Northern or Midland water snakes – nonpoisonous.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty common for people to mistake these water snakes for cottonmouths and kill them out of ignorance and fear. Too bad. These are really cool snakes.

After I snapped the pictures, a smaller snake (same species) crawled up on the motor and chased the other two back into the water.