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ORANGE LEADER (Texas) 20 July 06 King snakes kill copperheads (Chester Moore, Jr.)
Photo at URL below: This king snake easily overpowered a copperhead. Copperheads are pit vipers and are rather weak as they rely on their venom to kill. King snakes are constrictors and have very powerful muscles used to crush their prey.
Ron and Sherry Theriot of Orange saw something last week that very few people have had the privilege of witnessing.
They saw a king snake attacking and eating a copperhead.
“We lost our home in Rita and had to put a double-wide mobile home on our old slab. We added a nice porch and garage with a sidewalk leading from the porch to the garage,” Ron Theriot said.
“When we stepped off the porch on to the sidewalk that is where we saw the two snakes. It was so fascinating to watch. My wife felt so sorry for the copperhead at first, she wanted to pull it out of the king snake's mouth, but decided it was too late to save him,” he added.
Theriot said his wife picked up the king snake after it was finished with its meal.
“The whole scenario took about 10 minutes. We were so privileged to watch this,” he said.
King snakes are voracious predators of other snakes and our resident king snake subspecies, the speckled king snake seems to have a special taste for copperheads. I read a study a few years ago that showed copperheads to be the primary reptilian prey of king snakes in part of their range.
Many people kill any snake they see, but even snake haters should give the king snake a pass. They eat poisonous snakes and could save you or your pet a nasty bite.
King snakes are also excellent mousers. Farmers like to keep them around their barns because they not only knock down the number of poisonous snakes but also trim the vermin population.
These harmless snakes can put on a pretty good show when they are alarmed. They will quickly vibrate their tail when cornered and if they are in dry leaves it sounds a lot like the rattle of a rattlesnake.
King snakes are fascinating reptiles that deserves our respect and tolerance even if we tend to kill other species.
King snakes kill copperheads

That's a nice looking kingsnake.
Thanks for linking to the article.
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3.0 WC; 0.1 CB L. getula californiae
0.1 CB L. pyromelana pyromelana
0.1 WC; 10 eggs (7/11) Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

Nice to hear some good news for snakes.In N.C. I have heard some folks are more aware these days that Easterns are good to have around for the same reasons. It's also real nice that they look VERY different than anything venomous localy. Thanks for the article.

Thanks for the images, I plan to show them to my students !