I bet your buddy went from peeing to chitting at the same time!!!

Stumbled across these water snakes yesterday. They appear to be in a mating wrap. The head of the much larger snake was hidden in the grass, but you can see the smaller snakehead in the middle of the pic. Both disappeared as soon as they caught my movement.

LOL that was our joke... I'm glad you packed plenty of drawers!

I am glad it was him and not me. I heard it, too, but not well enough to recognize it. It sounded like something a lot further off to me and I don't think I would have stopped stepping. Could have ended a lot worse.

Normally I don't like to use the pizzer in the camper cuz I don't want it all stank up. That night I didn't seem to mind.

Great pic. Its different with snakes, they like bigger women

I posted the first picture last spring, but I thought I would share it again. It wasn't until I had the door unlocked that I noticed him. He could have had his way if he weren't snoozing.


This was taken in our old barn. I have only seen a couple of these prairie rattlers before. They are pretty cool looking.

Nightmares...

man! that thing is pretty!

cool pic

when i was in high school, my dad caught me and my girlfriend in a mating wrap, and we couldn't disappear quick enough

I'm afraid what you might have here is a rat snake.

Going to have to agree. Look at the pupils

- Better your dad caught you than hers. Looking closer, I actually see two heads in the middle of the picture.

My Wife almost stepped on this copper head this morning on the way to the dog kennel.



Found these a couple months ago under a slab table top i moved not 50 yards from the house. When I moved it they were not 2 ft from my father's foot luckily it was cold out.

OH, HAIL NO!

That's pretty big for a copperhead isn't it? I haven't seen many but that one is waaaay bigger than the ones I have run across.

She pretty deadly with that 7-08 also.

I think its safe to say that he going to do a better job at raising his daughter around snakes them me. Although I love watching those blue indigos no damnnn way im picking one up!!!

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Yes these are some of the biggest this year i have seen around our area. The one in the middle of the other pic is over 3ft.

I spotted my first rat snake for the year. Walking down the driveway yesterday. I would have taken a picture but I was chasing him into the woods. He was one of the 6' ones. Good lookin'

We have an abundance of yellow-bellied water snakes here on the place.

Wife usually kills a few copperheads in the yard each year.

Just because he ain't poisonous, doesn't mean it doesn't scare the living s**t out of you making you jump the fence and ripping your britches... got my camera out just to take pride in that moment!

Sweet! I caught a rat snake once on the side of the road. When I let him go, he went through the fence and right up a tree. I never look for snakes in a tree but I do now!!

I believe that tape measures in 10th's, so that snake would actually be about 6'4" Big SOB!

My uncle's buddy killed this one near College Station, it was trying to crawl up into his blind. 9'6", 22 rattles

Here is a copperhead I killed at my house, and a rattler that almost tagged me in deer camp
No the copperhead was not in the box, I killed him and then put him in the box. Ha ha! He was hiding in the grass about 6 inches from my little dog and 8 inches from my ankle. Yikes! Luckily we won!


This was in deer camp less than a foot from my leg but thankfully I was wearing snake boots and it was cool enough I was able to get a shovel. The coloration is off because one pic is zoomed in from my camera and the next pic is at a distance from my cell phone.

You need a pink shovel

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." -Michael Corleone


Sometimes I daydream that the myth of the giant dead rattlesnake has finally been put to rest. I imagine that inboxes will no longer be invaded by dead rattlesnakes with lengths and weights exaggerated to scare the bejesus out of people. But then I check my e-mail.


The latest picture to be doing the rounds was brought to my attention by a comment left by by Amy R on this blog. She notes that the snake on the right was allegedly killed in Mississippi. Then, Pat B. sent me an e-mail and told me the story takes place outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Both said they heard the snake was eight and a half feet (2.6 meters) long (Amy R. also noted the snake allegedly had 21 rattles).


Where do we start? I'll start by saying that those lengths are bogus and the locations are...unlikely.


The snake in the picture is an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, Crotalus adamanteus. This is apparent because of the black and gold diamond-patterning and, of course, the rattle. This species does not reach eight and a half feet long. That would be the world's largest rattlesnake ever known to science. I don't believe this is the world's largest rattlesnake ever known because it is clearly an animal that is approximately half that size and thrust toward the camera on a long piece of wood. It's a rattlesnake camera trick I explain several times above and below.


The Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake was once found in eastern Louisiana but is now nearly gone (if not completely). Information available online suggests the species hasn't been found in the state since 1995 but I believe these websites haven't been updated recently because I think one was found a couple years ago. In any case, Baton Rouge is nearly outside even the historic range of the Eastern Diamondback (range map). So, it is very difficult to believe the picture was recently taken in this state. I've noticed that a number of people that reach this blog are Googling "Coyell, Louisiana Rattlesnake" do they actually mean Colyell? Perhaps that is another potential location for this animal.


In Mississippi, the story isn't much better. Eastern Diamondbacks once ranged throughout the southeastern and central portion of the state (range map again). But they are increasingly rare in that area.


The caption for the Facebook photo that has been shared over 5,000 times (visible through Amy R.'s comment) states the snake was killed in "Green County". There is no Green County in either Louisiana or Mississippi. Is it possible that the snake was killed in Greene County? Greene County, Mississippi could possibly contain Eastern Diamondbacks but, as I mention above, they are extremely rare there. Greene County, Alabama is outside the range of the Eastern Diamondback. Update 1/16/13 0851, Melissa M. writes to me and notes she heard the snake was from "Green County, Georgia" Well, there is no Green County in Georgia. Greene County, on the other hand, is well outside the range of the Eastern Diamondback. Update 2/3/13, Cowper C. says the location associated with this snake is now Pangburn, Arkansas. We immediately know this is false because although Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes, Crotalus atrox, can be found in Arkansas, Eastern Diamondbacks do not occur there, and that is an Eastern in the picture. Cowper also notes that Spanish moss, evident in the back of the picture, is unlikely to be found in Arkansas. Update 2/4/13, Thanks to KARK for trying to set the record straight.

Conclusion: The length of this snake is definitely made-up and multiple (and improbable) locations point to a hoax.

Update 3/7/13, so many additional stories and locations about this snake have popped up that I stopped bothering to update the post, but recently many have claimed the snake was from Texas. In any case, it looks like the real story has finally surfaced: the snake is from Levy County, Florida and is claimed as 6'9" and 15 lbs. A rattlesnake that big would be very large but Eastern Diamondbacks can reach that length. However, it doesn't look that long in the picture.

Update 5/2/13: OK-one more update, the picture is circulating with this story a lot, so I'm obliged to note that it's not true either: "Pat Long and his son in a blind to hunt hogs near Midway when this guy poked his head in! Pat's son shot the snake... it's 9'6" long... with 22 rattles, the head more than five inches wide, the fangs 2.5" long. Anybody going for a walk in the woods this weekend? Share with your friends and see who has good snake stories!" Bogus.


This info is from this site: http://www.livingalongsidewildlife.com/2009/07/return-of-giant-killed-rattlesnake.html

Thanks for the info, Eagle! Good to know there aren't any 10' monsters out there crawling into deer blinds.