Is this a water snake?

[tallyho8]

I just caught him in my back yard. He looks like he got run over by a mower. He tried to snap at me when I caught him and his mouth was white inside like a cotton-mouth moccasin but his round eyes make me think he is just a water snake.

 

[jinman]

He looks suspiciously like a moccasin to me, but I can't see if he has pits in front of his eyes. Their coloration gets very dark this time of year. Since you have it confined, I'd look closely for the pits.

 

[Tdog]

Can't say for sure. Moccasins are not very long but are usually thick - - and their tail end sorta truncates. It just ends without much of a taper. Yours doesn't look like that - - but I'm not an expert.

Jack

 

[tbenn7362]

if it is a venomous snake it will have slits in its eyes like a cat. other wise just a solid color round eye--non venomous

 

[tallyho8]

Since the pupils of his eyes are round and not slanted, I am pretty certain that it is just a water snake. What confused me was that it was so aggressive trying to snap at me and that the inside of it's mouth was white like a cottonmouth. I didn't know that other snakes mouths were white inside also.

Since the end of his tail was cut off it made it harder to id from the tail. It also had a gash next to it's head where it was probably run over by a mower and maybe that was why it was so aggressive.

I let it go in the ditch and hope he makes it. If it had been a moccasin it would have had a different ending.

 

[dcyrilc]

My first thought was possibly an Indigo (YouTube - Endangered Species of the World - Florida Indigo Snake), but the scales don't look quite right for that.

 

[Skyco]

Since the pupils of his eyes are round and not slanted, I am pretty certain that it is just a water snake. What confused me was that it was so aggressive trying to snap at me.

In my experience water snakes can be very aggressive, while not poisonous they can certainly deliver quite a bite

 

[ronjhall]

Common Water Snakes in our area can be very aggressive. Friends encountered one in the water while canoeing on a local river. Snake came at them. Tried to use paddle to shoo snake away. Next thing they know snake is in canoe trying to attack. Managed to get snake back in water before it bit anyone. Then used edge of paddle to almost cut it in half before it gave up and swam away.

 

[Western]

Looks like what we call a "diamond back water snake" very aggressive.

I have dispatched 3 this year, 2 of them for my neighbor. I have had allot of different kind of snakes venomous and non, and these seem the most aggressive of any I have handled and the only one that has bit me. (good thing)

One particular thing about this snake is the strong "musk" it excretes when messed with, hard to miss this smell and they are at times very hard to tell from a "moscin"

I don't like them and either did my King snakes!

 

[gsganzer]

His head isn't triangular enough to be a water moccasin. I'd still introduce him to the working end of a shovel, just the same!