![]() ![]() The male then arches his body and tail, everting one of his two hemipenes, and mates with the female. After being sufficiently stimulated, the female lifts and arches her tail and lowers the scale that covers her cloaca. This courtship may last for an hour or more if the female does not respond. Eventually, after courtship, the male aligns his body with hers. Once a female is located, the male will begin moving his head or rubbing his chin on the ground. The mating season is from April to May, and a fall mating period is reported to happen in September.ĭuring the breeding season, males seek out sexually active females using their tongues to detect pheromones in the air. These snakes reach sexual maturity at 4 years old when they are about 2 feet long. Harmless snakes - such as the black rat snake, garter snake, northern water snake, ringneck snake and Dekay's or northern brown snake - are often misidentified as copperheads. The other venomous snake found closest to D.C. is the timber rattlesnake, which is found in Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia. The copperhead is one of about 20 snakes native to Washington, D.C., and is the only venomous species in the area. They climb into low bushes or trees to hunt prey and will also bask in the sun and swim in the water. ![]() They are also known to occupy abandoned and rotting wood or sawdust piles, construction sites and sometimes suburban areas. It is found in northern Georgia and Alabama, north to Massachusetts and west to Illinois.Ĭopperheads live in a range of habitats, from terrestrial to semiaquatic, including rocky, forested hillsides and wetlands. Of the five copperhead subspecies, the northern copperhead has the greatest range. Northern copperheads live in the United States from the Florida panhandle, north to Massachusetts and west to Nebraska. When touched, the copperhead may quickly strike or remain quiet and try to slither away. They typically occur when someone accidentally touches or steps on a snake that is well camouflaged within its surroundings. Though the copperhead is the cause of many snakebites annually, those bites are rarely fatal. This snake's fangs are replaced periodically throughout its life each snake has a series of five to seven replacement fangs located in the gums behind and above its current fangs. Even newborn copperheads have fully functional fangs capable of injecting venom that is just as toxic as an adult's venom. The length of the snake's fangs is related to its size - the longer the snake, the longer its fangs. These pits detect objects that are warmer than the environment and enable copperheads to locate nocturnal, mammalian prey.Ĭopperheads have fangs that release a hemolytic venom, a venom that causes the breakdown of red blood cells, used to subdue prey. The copperhead is a pit viper and, like others pit vipers, it has heat-sensitive pit organs on each side of its head between the eye and the nostril. The northern copperhead as a vertical pupil and a single row of scales on the underside of its body after the anal plate - features also found on some venomous snakes in Virginia. Young copperheads are grayer in color compared to adults and have a sulfur yellow-tipped tail, which fades over time and is lost by age 3 or 4. The bands are mostly hourglass-shaped, with the wider portions of the shape on either side of the snake's body and the narrower part of the shape crossing the snake's back over the tailbone. The northern copperhead has an unmarked, copper-colored head and reddish-brown, coppery body with chestnut brown crossbands. Copperheads are thick-bodied snakes with keeled scales.
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