Texas Gardening: Snake ID Request, 1 by trois

trois wrote:
I have killed almost a hundred (92) since we have been here. I have been bit, my son spent 2 days in the hospital from a bite. We have lost a big red dog, and a cat to Cottonmouth bites. They do travel a lot in dry weather. They can also look a lot like the one in the picture.
My bite had no venom injected. My son was not so lucky, but is OK now. The big red dog was bit on the tongue and died in minutes. They can be very aggressive and come after a person.

One characteristic on most, but not all, is the sudden decrease in tail diameter near the end.