Is this a copperhead?

[wood&feathers]

Love the picture Zazouse! One of these days I will find the time to take myself or family canoeing in the Jackson Purchase region of KY, in the real swamps. Truly a herpers' paradise.

Plus I might get my hands on some real big river cane!!

 

[redhen]

It sure looks like a copperhead....I would have killed it too..

 

[Mskayladog]

I sent the picture to the wildlife folks and finally got an answer and the posters were correct it's was a banded waterr snake.

 

[Serbian Cowboy]

It looks to me like a cotton mouth. We had a lot of them in Texas when I was a kid. But they are real tasty! smile. I would have killed it too. Cotton mouths and kids do not really get along and they only hiss before they strike.

 

[centrarchid]

I sent the picture to the wildlife folks and finally got an answer and the posters were correct it's was a banded waterr snake.

I am pretty certain the broad banded water snake (full common name) does not occur in Indiana. It typical of what is called the Mississippi Embayment with its most northerly extent being approximately the confluents of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers at the southern tip of Illinois.

Marking patterns approaching that of a banded but coloration much more typical of northern water snake. Your herpitologist needs to consult a range map because if he / she is correct, it will repressent a significant range expansion. See link for range map.

http://srelherp.uga.edu/snakes/nerfas.htm

 

[cjhawks]

looks like a broadbanded copperhead to me .

 

[cmb19]

You have northern and midland water snakes in Indiana.

It IS a water snake...which of those 2, I'm not sure. I can usually tell what a snake is, but with just that picture, I can't be positive enough to say it is a midland, or it is a northern, but it's one of the 2.