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Copperhead snakes: Facts, bites & babies

An adult copperhead snake, often found camouflaged among leaf litter.

An adult copperhead ophidian, often plant inconspicuous among leafage litter. (Prototype credit: Joe McDonald/Getty Images)

Copperhead snakes are some of the more commonly seen N American snakes. They're as well the well-nigh probable to bite, although their venom is relatively mild, and their bites are rarely fatal for humans.

These snakes become their proper noun, fittingly, from their copper-reddish heads, according to the biology department at Pennsylvania State Academy (opens in new tab). Some other snakes are referred to every bit copperheads, which is a mutual (nonscientific) proper name. Water moccasins (cottonmouths), radiated rat snakes, Australian copperheads and sharp-nosed pit vipers are all sometimes called copperheads, simply these are different species from the North American copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix).

Copperheads are pit vipers, like rattlesnakes and water moccasins. Pit vipers accept "heat-sensory pits betwixt eye and nostril on each side of head," which are able to detect minute differences in temperatures so that the snakes can accurately strike the source of oestrus, which is often potential prey. Copperhead "behavior is very much like that of most other pit vipers," said herpetologist Jeff Beane, collections director of amphibians and reptiles at the Due north Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (opens in new tab).

Characteristics

Copperheads are medium-size snakes, averaging between ii and 3 anxiety (0.6 to 0.9 meters) in length. According to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park (opens in new tab), female copperheads are longer than males; however, males possess proportionally longer tails.

According to Beane, copperheads' bodies are distinctly patterned. Their "dorsal blueprint is a serial of night, chestnut-dark-brown or reddish-brown crossbands, each shaped like an hourglass, dumbbell or saddlebag … on a background of lighter chocolate-brown, tan, salmon or pinkish," Beane said. He further described the saddlebags as "broad on sides of body, narrow in middle of dorsum — the crossbands typically accept darker margins and lighter lateral centers." Meanwhile, "some crossbands may exist broken, and sometimes small nighttime spots may be in the spaces between the crossbands."

Several other nonvenomous species of snakes have similar coloring, then are frequently confused for copperheads. However, copperheads are the simply kind of snakes with hourglass-shaped markings.

In contrast to its patterned body, the serpent's coppery-brown head lacks such adornments, "except for a pair of tiny dark dots usually nowadays on top of the head," said Beane. He described copperheads' bellies every bit "whitish, yellowish or a light chocolate-brown, stippled or mottled, with dark-brown, gray or blackish, often large, paired night spots or smudges along sides of [its] belly."

Copperheads have muscular, thick bodies and keeled (ridged) scales. Their heads are "somewhat triangular/arrow-shaped and distinct from the neck," with a "somewhat singled-out ridge separating [the] top of head from side snout between heart and nostril," said Beane. Their pupils are vertical, like cats' eyes, and their irises are unremarkably orange, tan or reddish-brown.

Immature copperheads are more than grayish in color than adults and possess "bright xanthous or greenish xanthous tail tips." According to Beane, "this color fades in nigh a yr."

Habitat

Copperheads reside "from southern New England to Westward Texas and northern Mexico," said Beane, advising those interested to cheque out range maps in a number of field guides.

Female copperhead snakes have been known to asexually reproduce — A copperhead snake, like the ane pictured here, had a litter of four offspring in 2009. But the ophidian hadn't had any contact with a male person in five years. Scientists confirmed recently the female copperhead was the outset evidence of virgin birth in a pit viper snake. (Paradigm credit: Credit: Chuck Smith)

In that location are five subspecies of copperhead distributed co-ordinate to geographic range: the northern, northwestern, southern and two southwestern subspecies. According to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park (opens in new tab), the northern copperhead has by far the largest range, from Alabama to Massachusetts and Illinois.

Co-ordinate to Beane, copperheads are happy in "an extremely broad range of habitats," though usually "at to the lowest degree some semblance of woods or forest habitat is present." They are "especially fond of ecotones," which are transition areas between 2 ecological communities. They like rocky, wooded areas, mountains, thickets nigh streams, desert oases, canyons and other natural environments, co-ordinate to Penn State; Beane added that they like "near whatsoever habitat with both sunlight and cover."

Co-ordinate to the Savannah River Environmental Laboratory (opens in new tab), copperheads are "quite tolerant of habitat alteration." This ways that they can survive well in suburban areas. Copperheads tin sometimes exist found in wood and sawdust piles, abandoned farm buildings, junkyards and old construction areas. They "often seek shelter under surface cover such as boards, sheet metal, logs or large flat rocks," said Beane.

Behaviour

Copperheads are semi-social snakes. While they unremarkably hunt alone, they usually hide in communal dens and often render to the same den every year. Beane said that populations in the "montane" (a forest area below the timberline with big, coniferous trees) oft spend the winter hibernating "with timber rattlesnakes, rat snakes or other species." Nonetheless, "Piedmont and Coastal Patently snakes are more probable to hibernate individually," Beane said.They also can be seen near ane another while basking in the lord's day, drinking, eating and courting, according to the Smithsonian Zoo.

According to the Ohio Public Library Information Network (opens in new tab), copperheads are usually out and most during the day in the bound and fall, but during the summer they become nocturnal. They especially like being out on humid, warm nights afterward rain. While they ordinarily stay on the ground, copperheads will sometimes climb into low bushes or trees in search of prey or to savour in the dominicus. Sometimes, they even voluntarily go swimming.

Co-ordinate to Brute Diversity Web (opens in new tab) (ADW), a database maintained by the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, scientists take hypothesized that copperheads drift belatedly in the bound to their summer feeding surface area, and so return abode in early fall.

Nutrition

He described copperheads as being "mobile ambush predators." Generally, they get their prey by "sit-and-wait ambush"; all the same, they sometimes do chase, using their heat-sensing pits to find prey.

The ADW explains that when attacking large prey, copperheads bite the victim, and then release it. They let the venom work, and then rails downward the casualty once it has died. The snakes ordinarily concur smaller casualty in their mouths until the victim dies. Copperheads eat their nutrient whole, using their flexibly hinged jaws to swallow the meal. According to Penn Country, adult copperheads may eat only x or 12 meals per yr, depending on the size of their dinners.

Reproduction

Copperhead mating season lasts from Feb to May and from late Baronial to October, and it tin be a dramatic thing. "Males may engage in ritual gainsay (trunk-shoving contests) when ii or more meet in the presence of a receptive female," said Beane. According to Penn Country, the snakes that lose rarely claiming over again. A female may likewise fight prospective partners, and will always reject males who back down from a fight with her.

Copperhead babies are born live. — Copperhead snakes don't lay eggs - babies are built-in live. (Image credit: Matt Jeppson (opens in new tab) Shutterstock )

Copperheads are ovoviviparous, which means that eggs incubate inside the mother'south body. Babies are born live. After mating in the spring, females will give nascency to "from ii to 18 live immature in late summer or autumn," said Beane. According to The Maryland Zoo (opens in new tab), afterward mating in the fall, the female will store sperm and defer fertilization for months, until she has finished hibernating. Babe copperheads are born with fangs and venom as potent as an developed's, according to the Smithsonian Zoo.

Young copperheads are eight to ten inches (20 to 25 cm) long and are built-in with both fangs and venom, according to Penn Country. They eat mostly insects, specially caterpillars.

Beane pointed out that young copperheads may exhibit different hunting patterns than adults. "Young snakes may sit otherwise motionless, flicking their yellow tail tips," he said. "This is known as 'caudal luring'; the tail resembles a minor caterpillar or other insect and may attract a lizard or frog [to come up] within striking range."

Classification and taxonomy

According to the Integrated Taxonomic Data Arrangement (opens in new tab) (ITIS), the taxonomy of copperheads is:

Kingdom: Animalia Subkingdom: Bilateria Infrakingdom: Deuterostomia Phylum: Chordata Subphylum: Vertebrata Infraphylum: Gnathostomata Superclass: Tetrapoda Grade: Reptilia Guild: Squamata Suborder: Serpentes Infraorder: Alethinophidia Family unit: Viperidae Subfamily: Crotalinae Genus & species: Agkistrodon contortrix Subspecies:

Agkistrodon contortrix contortrix (Southern copperhead),
Agkistrodon contortrix laticinctus (broad-banded copperhead),
Agkistrodon contortrix mokasen (Northern copperhead),
Agkistrodon contortrix phaeogaster (Osage copperhead)
Agkistrodon contortrix pictigaster (trans-Pecos copperhead)

Bite

Copperheads bite more people in almost years than any other U.S. species of serpent, according to the Northward Carolina State Academy Cooperative Extension Service (opens in new tab). Fortunately, copperhead venom is not very stiff.

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Unlike most venomous snakes, copperheads give no warning signs and strike almost immediately if they feel threatened. Copperheads have hemotoxic venom, said Beane, which means that a copperhead bite "oftentimes results in temporary tissue damage in the firsthand area of seize with teeth." Their bite may exist painful just is "very rarely (most never) fatal to humans." Children, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems may accept strong reactions to the venom, notwithstanding, and anyone who is bitten past a copperhead should seek medical attention.

Despite this, Beane thinks you should still let a Copperhead snake live in your back yard. He told N Carolina's Blue Ridge Public Radio (opens in new tab) that, "if you encounter them and they're coiled up somewhere where they want to be, they'll remain completely nevertheless and promise that you don't run across them or bother them... If yous practise disturb them, the first affair they'll probably do is try to get away. If you move them... they're going to endeavour to get back to something that's familiar."

Bean also talked about the benefits of having a Copperhead well-nigh your business firm: "They swallow a lot of species that we don't like, similar mice and rats, that can crusade diseases and bug. And [by] eating a lot of rodents, snakes are swallowing a lot of ticks. And ticks cause things like Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme affliction. One study showed that snakes are meaning tick destroyers in Eastern wood sites."

Research

According to contempo research on the Us National Library of Medicine (opens in new tab), snake venom in general is "recognized equally a potential resources of biologically agile compounds" that tin be used in cancer treatments. Scientists have found that a chemic in copperhead venom may be helpful in stopping the growth of cancerous tumors. Researchers at the University of Southern California injected the protein contortrostatin from the southern copperhead'southward venom, direct into the mammary glands of mice where human breast cancer cells had been injected two weeks earlier.

The injection of the protein inhibited the growth of the tumor and too slowed the growth of blood vessels that supply the tumor with nutrients. The venom'southward protein besides impaired the spread of the tumor to the lungs, one site where chest cancer spreads effectively.

Other facts

The length of a copperhead's fangs is related to the length of the ophidian — the longer the serpent, the longer the fangs.
When touched, copperheads sometimes emit a musk that smells similar cucumbers.
The penny is sometimes chosen a copperhead.
Northern Democrats who opposed the U.S. Ceremonious War were called Copperheads, co-ordinate to the Periodical of the Abraham Lincoln Association (opens in new tab).

Additional resource

How dangerous are copperheads? The Cooperative Extension Service at North Carolina Land Academy puts information technology simply: "Avert Copperhead snakes! (opens in new tab)" Learn more than nearly copperheads on the Animal Diversity Web (opens in new tab). Cheque out the Smithsonian Zoo'due south detailed fact sail most copperheads (opens in new tab).

Originally published on Live Science December. 16, 2021 and updated July 31, 2022.

Ben Biggs is a keen and experienced science and technology writer, published book author, and editor of the award-winning magazine, How It Works. He has also spent many years writing and editing for applied science and video games outlets, later condign the editor of All Nigh Space and and so, Real Law-breaking mag.