Friday, May 18, 2012

The kiss of death?

There are only three species of venomous snakes that live in Iowa and all of them are endangered or threatened in that state, so I never really had to worry about them before. Now that I've moved to Texas, I do have to worry about them. Venomous snakes are just as common here as the nonvenomous ones. In fact, the only snake I've seen so far was venomous. I think it might have been a cottonmouth, but it was getting dark and hard to be sure.


I can't identify which species of snake I'm looking at yet, but I do know how to tell if they are venomous or not. Most people know to look at the shape of its head. Venomous snakes have a more diamond shaped head while nonvenomous snakes have a rounder head.

But there are exceptions to that rule. So you have to look at a few other things to know for sure. Nonvenomous snakes have round pupiled eyes, a curved "nose," and larger scales on their head.
The Venomous snakes have slit pupils (like a cat), a pointed "nose," and small scales on their head

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