‹ Compare two snakes
Brown Watersnake vs Northern Watersnake
Tap a part to see it on both. Tap it again to turn it off.
(c) Leila Dasher, some rights reserved (CC BY)
Brown Watersnake
Nerodia taxispilota
Non-venomousMartyn Drabik-Hamshare, no rights reserved
Northern Watersnake
Nerodia sipedon
Non-venomousThe quick way to tell
Look just behind the head. The Northern Watersnake has full dark crossbands on the front of its body that break into blotches farther back. The Brown Watersnake has square checkerboard blotches all the way, with no bands.
Pattern ★ This settles it
Big squarish blotches alternating with side blotches - a checkerboard, not bands.
Crossbands up front breaking into blotches toward the tail; reddish half-moons on the belly.
Head
Head clearly wider than the neck, but no eye mask and no pale snout.
Narrow head barely wider than the neck; flattens when threatened.
Eyes
Round pupil, eyes set high on the head; no heat-sensing pit.
Round pupil, eyes set high on the head; no heat-sensing pit.
Pits
None. There is no pit between the eye and the nostril.
None. There is no pit between the eye and the nostril.
Tail
Tapers evenly; no rattle, no markings.
Tapers evenly; no rattle.
What it does
Drops from branches into the water and swims away.
Basks on docks and banks; drops into water, bites hard if grabbed.
Where it lives
Southeast coastal plain and Piedmont: southeastern Virginia through all of Florida, west into Alabama.
Eastern and central US from Maine and Ontario south to the Carolinas and the Gulf states (just into the Florida panhandle), west to Colorado, Nebraska and Oklahoma; introduced in California.