I can very much appreciate your open mind. But it's not as difficult to ID the venomous snakes in your area as you think. I live in Alabama and would be happy to offer any help I can. The venomous snakes in our area's are very few. You have 40 non venomous snake species in Mississippi and 6 species of venomous snakes in Mississippi. The 6 venomous species are Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, Timber Rattlesnake, Pygmy Rattlesnake, Cottonmouth/Water Moccasin, Copperhead, and the Coral snake. Depending on where you live in Miss. you may only have as few as three species. Three of these species are rattlesnakes so the rattles will give a positive ID for these. The rumor in the southeast that the (ground rattler) is a rattlesnake that has no rattles is not true. All rattlesnakes have rattles. Other than newborns that have one button that don't rattle due to the lack of other segments to rattle against. Pygmies have very small rattles and sometimes can't be heard or noticed easily. The coral snake is easily ID'd by the red and yellow bands being next to one another. The copperhead and Moccasin is a little more difficult to explain how to ID but a good study of photo's would help. Be sure to also search for photo's of watersnakes that are easily mistaken for both. The watersnakes that are most likely to be mistaken are the banded watersnakes, and the plain bodied watersnakes. Like I said I'd be happy to help if possible I do live close to you. If you study photo's of those six you can ID all the venomous snakes in Mississippi. Try to educate your children which are venomous so they can steer clear of them and leave them alone. Let them know the safest thing they can do if they do see a venomous snake is just slowly calmly get away from it. If let go on it's way chances are it will never be seen again. Remember education is key here.

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