Juvenile Copperhead

Found this little guy last night while out walking the dog. Relocated him to safer environs. Love that florescent green tail!

Thats awesome. I would have loved to photograph it. Glad you relocated.

That would be a dead SOB if I found it, had way more near misses from them than rattlers....

Small and deadly!

Never ran into a Copperhead before. I have had encounters with Rattlers,Water Moccasins,and Coral Snakes but never a Copperhead. I hope it stays that way! If I never see any of these again that would be fine with me.

Very cool, and love the fact ya relocated him!

Cool picture. I do not like snakes but know they have a purpose.

Cool pic

Eeesh

I ain't holding one of them thangs

Yes for fertilizer after decaying LOL

That first picture looks evil.

cool! Glad you didn't kill it

Yeah, pretty sure that's the last one I'll ever pick up. At 50+ years of age, my reflexes ain't what they used to be. Gettin' bit would not be fun and there ain't no sense in tempting fate.

i think they use that florescent tail as a lure to entice lizards and such. i assume also to warn predators that it is poisonous. Glad you did not kill the little fella.

Too bad they don't keep that fluorescent tail through adulthood. That way, they'd be easier to spot in the dead leaves.

Just wondering from the snake guru's...is that one big enough to be a problem for humans?

Thanks...Gman

Copperheads are born viable with venom glands and can certainly be a problem if bit. They are often worse because they don't control there venom like adults.

Nope not for me. bang bang bang... reload Bang Bang Bang. One bit my dog instead of me once and like to have lost him. I hate the silent litte bastages.

^^^ this .

I'm one of the resident "snake lovers" but I can't stand copperheads . If I'm in his territory I'll walk around him . If he shows up near the house all bets are off .

I will usually let them be unless they are around the house. Kids and copperheads not a good combo.

Cute little booger. Get him out of here.

i have heard this before and I have wondered about it's validity. I am not trying to pick a fight but aren't the babies born with the exact same skills as the adults? they are snakes. they come pre-programmed to survive with the same skills an adult has. anyway I kind of figure as a survival strategy not being able to control venom as a bay and "learning how" as they get older. it is not good for species survival as they might blow their whole vemon supply in their first meal and starve after that as it might take weeks to replenish. snakes are not taught and do not have cognitive capacity to learn. they just do what they do and have done for millennia.

anyway, just a hypothesis. if you are for sure, tell me I am wrong and I am OK with that too.

It is irresponsible to free handle venomous snakes. It doesn't show others you are cool, know what you are doing and sends a poor message to younger people. While a copperhead isn't deadly, it is dangerous to free handle them. A kid could think, "That is cool and try to handle a genuinely dangerous animal, like a rattlesnake.

Glad you said that. I have been handling snakes for as lond as i can remember, and have never been bitten by a venomous snake. Rattlers and coral snakes are the only 2 i wont mess with. Everyone thinks copperheads are deadly, but that isnt necissarily true. If you are a normal healthy person, all the hospital will do usually is give you a teatnus shot and manage pain, and maybe keep you for observation. No antivenin.

Same here. Got no use for snakes..

just what I was told from a biologist. controlling the venom is a learned behavior from the way I understood. Makes sense to me. I know I don't want to find out out!

Hear hear! When did people start thinking venomous snakes should be protected? I say kill them and if the mice population grows kill them too.

Nice!

He won't be little for long. I don't like snakes.

http://www.livingalongsidewildlife.com/2009/10/are-bites-from-baby-venomous-snakes.html


The short answer: No.

Full Column:

For all the fear and hatred they evoke, snakes inspire fascination like no other group of animals. Those that kill snakes on sight will eagerly take every opportunity to share stories of their encounters with serpents. Animal lovers will hold court with tales of large snakes they have seen and those they hope to find. And perhaps most interestingly, rational-minded people, even those that spend much of their time outdoors, will often believe the most far-fetched ideas about snake biology.

When it is revealed that I am a researcher that specializes in reptiles, I am often confronted by curious individuals wanting to know the veracity of a particular legend. I’ll never forget the woman who earnestly asked me whether I knew what kind of snake would grow into separate, fully-functioning individuals when it was cut into pieces with a garden hoe. I believe I noted that I wasn’t familiar with that species.

They say that every myth has some basis in reality, so it shouldn’t be surprising that there are some legends that seem more reasonable. Perhaps the question that I am posed most often relates to the relative danger of young versus adult rattlesnakes.

The legend goes that young snakes have not yet learned how to control the amount of venom they inject. They are therefore more dangerous than adult snakes, which will restrict the amount of venom that accompanies a bite. It’s repeated so often that it’s become a sort of mantra among laypeople and biologists alike.

It seems like a simple enough suggestion, but to examine this topic requires some examination of the assumptions implicit within the framing of the question as well as delving into some hot topics in biology. There are four main assumptions when the question is framed in this manner: 1) snakes are able to control the amount of venom they inject, 2) there is some disadvantage to a snake when it injects all of its venom in every bite (otherwise why not inject all of their venom all of the time?), 3) as a result, a snake will learn of these disadvantages and change its behavior as it matures, and finally, 4) a full envenomation from a young snake is more dangerous than a partial envenomation from an adult snake.


First things first, can a snake control the amount of venom they inject? This is actually a contentious issue among snake specialists. There are some who believe snakes do indeed control the amount of venom they inject, they are proponents of what is considered the Venom Metering Hypothesis (among scientists, a hypothesis is a preliminary explanation of observed phenomena; these explanations haven’t been rigorously tested. This is a step below a scientific theory, which is a conclusion based on observations and experimentation). Past studies have indicated snakes inject different amounts of venom in different situations, but the trends are sometimes inconsistent.

A recent review of studies on the subject suggested although some researchers have documented trends in venom injection, there isn’t compelling evidence to suggest that it was necessarily controlled via any decision by the snake. They came to this conclusion because the trends didn’t seem to indicate the amount of venom the snakes injected would have any consistent benefit in the wild. And if there was no apparent benefit in the wild, then why would snakes be choosing to exhibit this behavior?

An alternative hypothesis has been termed the Pressure Balance Hypothesis, which suggests the amount of venom a snake injects is due to a combination of snake anatomy and the properties of the object the snake is biting. This would explain why snakes tended to inject different amounts of venom into different targets with no clear benefit to the serpent.

For the purpose of this discussion, let’s say that snakes can control the amount of venom they inject. The second assumption states there must be some disadvantage to a snake injecting all of its venom when it bites; otherwise, a snake would just inject everything every time. Why not?

This is another interesting question. It may be beneficial for a snake to keep some venom on hand in case its intended prey requires a second dose, or if a first prey item escapes and another quickly appears. Another scenario is that a snake does not want to inject all of their venom into their food just in case they are suddenly confronted by a potential predator of their own. Finally, it takes some time for a snake to produce more venom, and energy that goes into venom production is energy these animals could use for other important tasks, such as growth or reproduction. Consequently, common sense would suggest that there are some disadvantages to a full release of venom at every opportunity. It may be possible to confirm this suggestion via experimentation by testing whether snakes that frequently inject all of their venom experience slower growth, lower reproductive rates, or high mortality. To determine this would require a complex study, one that has not yet been attempted.


The third assumption states that as a snake matures, they learn there are disadvantages to delivering full venom loads during every bite and as a result, they change their behavior. For learning to occur, there must be positive or negative reinforcement. If we state that a snake may keep venom on hand in case a prey item (or one that appears shortly after the first prey item) requires a second bite, this snake must have experienced a number of incidents where they injected a fraction of the venom they had into a prey item only to have this prey item escape. Over time, they may learn that it’s beneficial to keep some venom for a successful attack later. This may make sense superficially, but one might think that it would be more likely that the snake learns to inject more venom with their first bite and increase the chance of a fatality than saving venom just in case they experience another opportunity to bite their intended food again. A commenter has rightly pointed out that there are a number of other potential scenarios we need to consider as plausible.

If we state that a snake learns to withhold venom from their bites in case a potential predator quickly appears and attempts to eat them, a snake must have learned that it’s somehow beneficial to do so. This snake would have had to experience numerous predation attempts and survive to know the costs associated with their venom injection behavior. If an “empty” snake were to be eaten by an owl or bobcat, then it would know that it should’ve kept some venom (but it’s too late to do anything about it because it’s dead). For a snake to learn it’s beneficial to keep venom ready, it would have had to survive an attack, and if it survived an attack without any venom left over from a previous feeding attempt, then I guess it didn’t really need that venom anyway. So, by logically extending the third assumption, we find that it’s difficult to envision a scenario that would enable a snake to eventually learn that it’s beneficial to withhold the amount of venom it injects with their bite (check the Comments to read about why this sentence was misleading). Remember, it would likely require that this scenario happen numerous times for a snake to eventually learn the consequences of their behavior.

It’s possible that there are evolutionary advantages to a snake retaining some venom in case it’s needed in a defense against an attack by a predator. It’s easy to conceive how snakes that tended to have venom on hand would be more likely to survive longer and produce young. If this behavior had a genetic component, the surviving snakes would pass on the tendency to conserve venom to their offspring. This is not learning however, and the behavior would be innate (i.e. something they’re born with) or instinctual.

Finally, the fourth assumption states that a bite from a young snake that has no control over the amount of venom it injects is more dangerous than a learned adult. But, there are some big snakes out there, and just a fraction of their total venom capacity could be more than 100% of a young snake’s potential venom output. So, I don’t think this final assumption is always valid.

To summarize, although it’s possible that this legend is true and baby snakes are more dangerous than adults because they haven’t learned to control the amount of venom they inject when they bite, it’s safe to say this is unlikely to be the case. And, there's really no evidence to suggest it's true. Due to the complexities of the original question, I doubt this statement will ever be tackled in a manner that sufficiently addresses all of its assumptions. But until then, try not to get bitten by any venomous snakes, no matter how old they are.

My wife walked out on the porch to drink her coffee and ran across this one.

It was a baby and no I didn't pick it up.

TL....DNR

Unless you are professionally trained to handle them as such. "Irresponsible"... wow. Plenty of people are trained to handle venomous creatures. It's their job. Does this make them irresponsible? A lot of people, including myself, catch/trap/relocate/etc., as a hobby and as an extra means of income. It's not irresponsible, If you're PROPERLY trained. As far as kids are concerned, sure, kids are impressionable, but if your child is disciplined, a simple, "do as I say, not as I do," should do the trick. Take the time to explain to them, and make them understand that it is dangerous, and that handling them takes a special kind of person, with lots of experience and trained to handle them, and not to try and mimic it themselves. Telling someone something like this is irresponsible because children might be watching is absolutely absurd. Very neat pictures brother. Copperheads are probably my favorites. Gorgeous snakes.