Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've caught water snakes my whole life, but until this weekend have never seen one display like a cottenmouth. It appeared to be a banded water snake, it did flatten its head to resemble a poisonous snake. I've spent my whole life explaining to people that cottonmouths do not live in New Jersey, I still know they don't, but what watersnake displays in the same way. Anyone seen this before? Thanks in advance for your help.

I think the only water in In ur range would be the northern water snake.. which is very defensive when cornerd or provoked.. but if it was around a lake, creek ect.. then the water snake would most likely would of dashed for water and escaped , while cottonmouths will stand there ground and gape there white mouth open at the person.. I believe NJ could have cottonmouths.. no doubt..I have heard of people finding them there , like around the pine barrens and so fourth.. hope this helps...

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Zach

Trust me, there are cottonmouths in NJ. I live up North there and i've encountered 3 in the last 2 years.

Your snake was most likely a Northern Watersnake. I have caught Nerodia of several species that opened their mouths when disturbed or restrained. The behavior is markedly different in Cottonmouths as they will coil tightly and gape, their fangs readily visible.

Any accounts of Cottonmouths in NJ are certainly erroneous. The most northerly occurring populations are in SE VA.
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Pierson Hill

How is everything?
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Justin

Busy, busy, busy. I am interning under a UGA grad student at Tall Timbers Research Station on the FL/GA border North of Tallahassee. We're running 36 drift fence trap arrays and doing radiotelemetry on 12 Corn Snakes and Grey Rats. Trapping has been pretty slow as of late but I am catching enough giant Cottonmouths and Eastern Diamondbacks to keep things interesting.

Also had two litters of 3 Gulf Salt Marshes this year and a litter of 27 N. floridana.
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Pierson Hill

I never said it was a cottonmouth, what I did say is it was heavily banded and had a white mouth which it displayed "LIKE" a cottonmouth. My question is has anyone seen a watersnake with a white mouth? I was very stout, I did not see any fangs. I've caught hundreds of northerns, this was not a typical snake.

>>My question is has anyone seen a watersnake with a white mouth?

I have very limited experience with waters, but I've seen plenty of snakes with infections (mostly of the mouth, but not always) that cause the lining of the mouth to turn white or at least a much lighter pink. Just a thought...

This snake had a glow in the dark white as snow mouth which he proudly displayed, "like" a water moccason. My question. Is there a species of "watersnake" with a snow white inner mouth?

I see it quite a bit with Nerodia. It was most likely the Northern Watersnake (N. sipedon sipedon) Here is a midland watersnake (N. s. pleuarlis) flaring its head to make it look "cottonmouth-like". They bite readily and also have a whitish mouth, thought they don't display it like a cottonmouth. And as the other poster said, cottonmouths don't live in NJ.

Yeah I bet that it was just a northern water snake.. but there has been ppl that have found cottonmouths in the pine barrens.. not impposible..