Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We found 36 cottonmouths in under 3 hrs today, none repeats. They ranged from orange tinted to very light juveniles to almost black 4 footers. Some were found buried, some in holes under tree roots, and one was found in situ eating a frog. In addition, we were kicking down head high branches (herping got slow for a minute) and this branch hits the ground and a toad pops out...it had easily been about 4 feet up in a hole in this tree...kinda cool. 2 ribbons and about 6 waters accompanied this as well as a multitude of leo frogs. Andy
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Andy Maddox
The Reptizone

Who are you who can say it's ok to live through me? Alice In Chains

Nice day! In June 1998 I was told by some friends that they had seen numerous cottonmouths on Rte 78 above Lake Okeechobee coming back from he west coast. The next night we went to investigate. I had been raining for about two days straight. Temps were in the high 70's at about 7:30 pm. As we crossed Brighton reservation we started seeing road kills. we continued west on 78 and immediately started seeing Florida Cottonmouth's (Live) For the next two 1/2 hours we were constantly catching them. At one point I exited the vehicle and found one right beside me. I called to the other guy with me to get the venomous box open, as I looked around I found another one about two feet away.Then as I turned a third was about a foot from the other. (Remember it was dark and raining.)So there I was with a cottonmouth in my thongs and two more being pinned by my feet. Glad I had a partner!! To make a long story short we collected 58 specimens in 21/2 hours! We counted over 150 DOR's on that 20 mile stretch that night. We stopped because we didn't have any more room. After collecting data on size, sex and locality we released all but 3 gravid females. These we kept until they had the babies then released them back into this area. I've been back to this area on many occasions but, haven't seen the same massive movements of this species. Also, over 95% of the specimens alive or DOR's were Cottonmouth's. Interesting night! By the way the traffic on this highway has so increased that it's tough to even get stopped for the few snakes alive. Thanks Ray Goushaw Herpetological Breeding Research