cottonmouth snake final

The cottonmouth snake, also known as the water moccasin, is a venomous snake that belongs to the viper family. They are mostly aquatic but come out to bask in the sun. They are large snakes, around 2-4 feet long, with heavy bodies and orange-brown coloration. They have triangular-shaped heads with a dark line through the eyes. Juveniles are brightly colored, while adults may lose their color. They are venomous and release venom into their prey or whoever they bite. They have three subspecies: eastern, southern, and northern cottonmouths. They are mostly active at night and go into brumation during winter. When threatened, they may run away or vibrate their tails. They have facial pits to detect heat changes. They eat a variety of prey, including fish, small mammals, birds, amphibians, and other reptiles. They kill their prey with one bite and swallow it whole. Mating occurs in spring, with Hi, and welcome back to another episode of the Wildlife Wonders Podcast. I'm your host, the one and only Sariyana, and we're coming back with you another animal this week. We did a mammal last week, and so we are going to a reptile this week. And since last time we talked about reptiles, we talked about lizards, this time I'm going to talk about a snake, specifically the cottonmouth snake, also known as the water moccasin. So they're called also vipers, they're called like blackwater snakes, there's so many different names for them. But the cottonmouth snake, which I'll also refer to instead of water moccasin, the cottonmouth snake is a venomous snake. It is one of the top venomous snakes in the US, I think, well, it's one of the top water venomous snakes in the US, but regardless, it is a venomous snake. And it's part of the viper family. What also falls in this family is the copperheads and the rattlesnakes. So don't go around getting bit by this. It is often confused for other water snakes that look similar to it. But there are distinct pictures of this snake that we will go over. So like I said before, it is mostly aquatic. They could be considered semi aquatic because they do come out to bask in the sun. Reptiles, if you remember from the beginning are cold blooded, that means they regulate their temperature by their environment, okay. So when they need to gain some heat after they've been in the water, they'll often go to rocks and logs or something out of the water so they can get some heat from the sun and then go back into the water. To describe what these snakes look like, they are very big snakes anywhere from two to four feet long. There has been on rare occurrences, some that are a little bit longer. But regardless, two to four feet, they are very, they have a heavy body. In general, most are like an orange brownish color. As they get older, they do lose their color, but most are orange and brown. They have large triangular shaped heads with a dark line through the eyes. And then they also have, so like I said, most of them are brown. They have darker patches or darker bands around them, but you do have some that looks more orangish. I want to say fall colors, like orangish brown, little tints of like a darker yellow, maybe a little black here and there as they get older. But unlike the adults, when the juveniles come out and also when they're growing up, the juveniles are really brightly colored. So you'll see your yellows and your bright oranges and reds. That's how you kind of tell the younger from the older one. Regardless, with the brightly colored juveniles, they have a yellow tail tip that sometimes they'll wave and move about. Their bellies for the adults are usually darker and a brownish yellow. They do have black under their tail from what I remember when you lift up the, which you're not going to go lift it up. But if you were to lift up the underside of this cotton mouse, then you'll see like a black under the tail. So that's a little bit how they look. Like I said, they are venomous. I'll get to why they're called cotton mouse later on. But venomous means that they release venom into their prey or whoever they bite. Venom could kill you. It could kill you. I guess it could paralyze you in some situation. Well, it will paralyze you, but I'm pretty sure eventually it could kill you. Nonetheless, there's three subspecies. There's the eastern cottonmouth, the southern and the northern. Your eastern cottonmouth, I live in North Carolina. Your eastern cottonmouth are often common in North Carolina as well as Georgia. And then because of that, their habitat, for the most part, you'll see these throughout North America or throughout the Southeast North America in the water, what has the name water moccasins. They're mostly active at night. In this habitat, like I said before, they are on branches, logs, or stones, but during the winter, they sort of go into a brumation, which is a form of like, almost like a hibernation for reptiles. During this time, they usually go underground and burrows and mammal burrows and rotten tree stumps and logs and wooded hillsides, anywhere they can hide undisturbed and in peace. So yeah, so they do have their brumation. Usually in the winter, they're less active, they're hiding, and they're just kind of relaxing, chilling out until it gets hot again, and they're ready to hunt when it's hot. So as far as behavior, you're like, okay, they're venomous, but how do they act? So even though they're venomous snakes, a lot of times when they feel like people come near them or someone, someone, a prey or something's coming near, not a prey, a predator or something's coming near them, they often run. Their first line of defense is not attacking people and biting people, as you would think maybe something so harmful could, but they will often try to get away or they will swim away first. Now, I'm not going to say that doesn't mean they're going to attack people because they can, they will bite you if they need to be, they will get to, every snake is different. Just like I said, every person is different. You might need the right one that's going to instantly go into attack mode. You never know. But in general, most of the time they'll run away. And when they do get defensive, they cool their bodies, they vibrate their tails, almost similar to like a rattlesnake, you know how they shake their tails and then they open their mouth to let you know, back up, here's your warning. You may or may not get a warning depending on how they're feeling that day, but that is what they do when they feel, um, when they're feeling defensive. Now they do have facial pits, uh, sensing facial pits between the eyes and the nostrils. This is to detect the change in heat. So when their prey is close by or something is moving close by, they can detect the change from like, Hey, this is something really hot running by me to like, Oh, this is the cold water. It's mostly to help them detect their prey, but also just to see what's around them or know their area or environment around them. So I thought that was pretty cool. Now diet. We know they do eat a lot of stuff, their vitamins and minerals, but what exactly do they eat is what we need to think about. So they technically are carnivorous, but they eat a lot of different things. So they eat prey in the water and on land. They fish, small mammals, birds, amphibians, and other reptiles. And yes, they can eat other water moccasins or other, other cottonmouth snakes, but they will eat other snakes as well outside of their own species. So the way it happens is they strike, they kill their prey with one bite. When they kill their prey with one bite, their prey is wiggling, it's wiggling, it's wiggling, and then it goes limp. Once their prey goes limp, then they're like, okay, right, we're good now, we can swallow. They don't want to have to deal with all that mess that they're swallowing, their prey is moving. So they wait until it goes limp. Typically, they wrap their body around and they take their time to enjoy their meal and swallow their meal whole. They do not chew their food, people, they swallow it whole. So that is their diet, not to say, of course, you know, when times get rough, they might eat other stuff. I'm pretty sure there's other things scurrying around that sound good to them, they'll probably eat it. But for the most part, that is what they eat. Outside of their diet, you have their mating. And so with their mating, like I was saying before, they are most active in the warm months, but they can be awake during other times, but they're most active in the warm months. They hook up and mate in the spring, between April and May. During this time, the males do compete over the females, okay? So the males compete over the females, they fight each other over the females, they'll do this little Slytherin dance and say, hey, girl, I know you see my moves, pick me, I'm going to be yours. And so once they get the females, the females hold their gestation period, they carry their young for five months. After the five months are done, the females release them, and then the young can go off and they come out, they're live young, they come out live, moving, ready to go and off on their own. They give birth to this live young, supposedly every two to three years, but when they give birth, they can produce 10 to 20 young, 10 to 20 young cottonmouths. The problem with that is a lot of the cottonmouths do not make it to adulthood because of predators. So there's a little issue there. Yeah, you produce 10 or 20, but like maybe five or 10, five, make it four, make it to adulthood by the time it's all said and done, because the predators see the small ones like, oh, yeah, they don't know what they're doing yet, let's get them. So the cool thing about the female cottonmouth though, is that I'm probably going to butcher this and I'm sorry. They are a viviparous, or a viviparous, which means eggs incubate inside the mother's body. They hold the eggs inside the body until they're ready to come out and crack, or until they're ready to crack, and then once that happens, they're released. But they lay eggs, but it stays inside, it stays inside their body instead of them sitting on it on the outside. So I thought that was pretty cool, it's different. So like I was saying, you have your, you have your little kids, the babies come out, they swim out on their own. And like I said, a lot of them don't make it to adulthood. Now, the predators to watch out for, for both adults, and for juveniles, but especially for juveniles, they have to watch out for raccoons, cats, eagles, and snapping turtles. I am pretty confident that there are other big birds of prey out there that probably come down and swoop and get a snake. But these are their main predators. The other predator, I guess you could consider not to eat them necessarily, I don't even know, can you, I don't know, can you eat a cottonmouth if you were to, because people out there eat snakes. I'm not really sure if you can eat a cottonmouth, but regardless, I guess you consider another predator of theirs is humans, but a lot of humans are not killing them to eat them, they're killing them because they're invasive, or like maybe bothering their lives, I'm not sure, but killing because they think they're venomous, so I'm going to assume you're a threat to me, so I'm going to kill you first kind of thing. So that being said, this snake is very common, it's not, it's, their conservation status is the least concern because they are so common, they're, you can find them all up and down the southeast coast, if you talk to someone that lives in the southeast or the south, they might even tell you, especially if they live near water, they might tell you they see the cottonmouth before. But the problem is a lot of times this snake gets confused for other water snakes because they look very similar, so yeah, some people might be like they saw a cottonmouth, but it really wasn't a cottonmouth, so there's that, but they're a least concern, the biggest threat to them is habitat loss, deforestation, and humans killing them because who wants a venomous snake sitting around them, so hey, yeah, I don't see that changing anytime soon, their conservation status, I really don't, I can't predict that for sure, but I don't feel like they're that threatened compared to some of the other species we've talked about where they have multiple uses or the reasons why people are killing them or large habitat loss, but we have made it to the end, the best part always, the fun facts, so let me drop them to you real quick, real, there are, usually I get three, I think I have four, I have four for you, I have an extra one, so the first one, cottonmouth, why is a snake named cottonmouth, well, you see boys and girls, when they open their mouth and they go into their defense mode as they're about to strike, um, they have a white puffy lining in their mouth, I guess that resembles cotton, um, and so yeah, that's why they're called cottonmouth snakes, I suppose, so that's, that's the main reason they're called cottonmouth snakes, like I said, they're also called water moccasins, um, they're also called black water snakes, and the reason why they're called black water snakes, so when the adults get older, they start to lose their color and they become darker and usually black, so that's why they are called black water snakes, because a lot of times if you, some people see them when they're older, they just look like black snakes, they're just older water, uh, cottonmouth snakes, but they used to be colorful, but they lose their color as they age, another fun fact, is they vibrate their tails to attract their prey closer, so again, I guess because in the viper family, it's similar to rattlesnake, where they shake their tails, but instead of shaking, it's like a little vibration or it moves really quick, it could be because a fish sees a tail vibrating and could possibly think that it's a worm, maybe that's one thought about it, um, or many predators could think it's a worm or a smaller fish, so maybe that's why, and then finally, they have extremely painful bites, yes, I know you're saying, well, spammy, duh, and it's a big snake, duh, but not just that, so when they bite you, or when they bite their prey, there's a burning sensation, this is because their venom breaks the tissue down, so it breaks the tissue down of their prey or whatever they bit into, so it's easier for them to digest, so if you were to get bit by the snake, you would literally feel the tissue in the cells breaking down when the snake bites you, ouch, that's all I gotta say, ouch, it sounds incredibly painful, I don't want to experience that, I don't want anybody to experience that, but yeah, don't get bit by a cottonmouth, but we've come to the end, I appreciate each and everyone for sticking through episode after episode, listening, tuning in, sharing with your friends, sharing with your family, sharing with your coworkers, sharing with the people you don't like, however you share it, however you enjoy this, I appreciate it, everyone, every single one of you, if you want to learn more, if you want to see pictures, if you want to reach out to me, if you want to suggest an animal, I'm always open to it, find me on wildlifewonderspodcast on Instagram, that is wildlifewonders, with an s, podcast, all one word, all lowercase, on Instagram, and that is where you can find the page, ladies and gentlemen, and see the pictures of the animals that we talked about, see videos, fun facts, engaging posts, and just reaching out to y'all, y'all reaching out to me, that's where you're going to find them, every Friday, episodes on every major platform, such as Spotify, Apple Music, Buzzsprout website itself, and so forth, that's where you can find the podcast, just stay in tune, stay in touch, every Friday, come back here, listen to me speak, and I hope you learn something from this, thank you everyone, bye.