Cottonmouth Snakes
Introduction
The Cottonmouth is a common aquatic snake found in wetland areas, rivers, lakes etc. It’s larger than its close relative the Copperhead Snake and normally reaches a length of 30 to 48 inches (75-125 cm).
Another name of the cottonmouth snake is the Water Moccasin. The name cottonmouth originates from the cotton like color in the snakes mouth.
It's a common misunderstanding that the Cottonmouth Snake, with the Latin name Agkistrodon piscivorus is a particular aggressive snake compared to other snakes. This misunderstanding was challenged in a study by Gibbons and Dorcas (1998)1.
They showed that when Cottonmouth Snakes was threatened more than 50 percent would try to escape. Most of the snakes used threat displays to avoid the danger (symbolized by an artificial hand) and less than one out of three snakes tried to attack an artificial hand. These data suggest that the Cottonmouth isn't as aggressive as someone thinks.
The Cottonmouth snake is black, brown or olive colored with lighter bands on its side that its basic dark color.
Diet
The cottonmouth eats a lot of different prey. The diet includes other snakes, fish, lizards, turtles, frogs, small birds and alligators and mammals. It doesn't swallow its prey until the prey is dead. This behavior is seen when the prey is held in its jaws to succumb to its venom. Prey that is likely to bite back is first struck and then released to avoid eventual attacks. If the prey flees the cottonmouth is able to track and hunt down the escaped prey.
Cottonmouth Snake Bite
The cottonmouth produces its venom in glands close to where
the jaws join. In the case of a bite the muscles around the glands
squeezes venom from the glands through channels to the fangs. The venom
is able to destroy blood cells and reduces the normal coagulation and
clotting abilities of the blood. This results in what is called
hemorrhage in the parts of the prey's body penetrated by the poison.
Cottonmouth Snake Picture:
Life Cycle
The eggs of a cottonmouth develops inside the females body and hatch within the parent before birth. Sometimes the egg hatch immediately after laying. The size of the cottonmouth litter is from 6 to 12 living young snakes. The newly born / hatched snakes are 8-10 inches long (10-25 cm) and 0.75 inches (2 cm) in diameter.
Most female cottonmouth reproduces every second year. The percentage of females reproducing depends on prey availability, temperature and the size distribution of females in the given population. Small female cottonmouth snakes are less likely to give birth to new young snakes. In a Virginia survey of cottonmouth (Blem & Blem, 1995)2 it was found the winter mortality during hibernation had a huge impact on fertility rates.
References
1Gibbons & Dorcas. "Defensive behavior of cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus) toward humans", COPEIA Volume 1, pp. 195-198 (2002)
2Blem & Blem. "THE EASTERN COTTONMOUTH (AGKISTRODON PISCIVORUS) AT THE NORTHERN EDGE OF ITS RANGE", JOURNAL OF HERPETOLOGY Vol. 29 (3) page 391-398 (1995)
Resources
Cottonmouth
Snake from Bayou Bob
Smithsonia National Park - cottonmouth information