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I was googling Cottonmouths to help my son (who is almost a Boy Scout) to identify actual venomous snakes. Most of the photos I found were indeed cottonmouths or copperheads. Then I came across this photo of a "baby Cotton Mouth". I know I'm not an expert on snakes by any means, but I can identify quite a few. This one looked like a Hognose to me, but I'm also not familiar with baby snakes, I suppose.

I'd love to see what you guys think.

Image

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Holly
Round Rock, TX

1.0 Florida Kingsnake (Eddie Gein)
0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Belle Gunness)
1.0 Vietnamese Golden Gecko (George Chapman)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Black Cat (Shadowfax)

2.0 Kids (Justice & Trevor)

Good call, Holly!

Yes, that horrible "cottonmouth" is a harmless juvenile Eastern Hognose (Heterodon Platirhinos) that looks to be being tortured or killed there...

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

I thought so! Yeah, I'm really disturbed about the photo; it was posted by some pest control company in Texas (I didn't recognize the city, but it's not near Austin).

I've always loved Hognosed snakes; we used to get them in our yard in Callaway, Florida and my mother and I dubbed them the "actors of the snake kingdom" because they would coil up and shake their tails like rattlesnakes, then puff out their necks like cobras, and finally play dead if you didn't go away. ^_^ I loved watching them since they were a learning experience (I was just a little kid back then). Never hurt a single one, though I felt bad when I caught the first one and he spit out the toad he had been trying to eat. Ended up releasing him back near some other toads (they were everywhere) so he could get another meal easily.
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Holly
Round Rock, TX

1.0 Florida Kingsnake (Eddie Gein)
0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Belle Gunness)
1.0 Vietnamese Golden Gecko (George Chapman)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Black Cat (Shadowfax)

2.0 Kids (Justice & Trevor)

Yeah, it's very sad, Holly. Another so-called "snake expert" exterminator was verifying a misidentification some other people were saying in a post just below this one that a totally harmless Northern Watersnake was a copperhead............*heavy sigh*

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com