‹ Compare two snakes
Eastern Copperhead vs Eastern Hog-nosed Snake
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(c) Court Harding, some rights reserved (CC BY)
Eastern Copperhead
Agkistrodon contortrix
VenomousAdam DeHollander, no rights reserved
Eastern Hog-nosed Snake
Heterodon platirhinos
Mildly venomousThe quick way to tell
Look at the snout. The hog-nosed snake's is upturned like a shovel, and its pupils are round. The copperhead's snout is normal and its pupils are vertical.
Head ★ This settles it
Plain coppery triangular head with no stripes or blotches, clearly wider than the neck.
Sharply upturned snout; spreads its neck wide like a cobra when alarmed.
Pattern
Dark hourglass bands - wide at the sides, pinched to a narrow waist over the spine.
Very variable - blotched orange, brown, gray or olive, or plain black with no pattern.
Eyes
Vertical slit pupil; heat-sensing pit between eye and nostril.
Round pupil, with the upturned snout above; no heat-sensing pit.
Pits
A deep heat-sensing pit on each side of the face, between the eye and the nostril.
None. There is no pit between the eye and the nostril.
Tail
Plain; young have a bright yellow tail tip.
Underside of the tail is lighter than the belly; no rattle.
What it does
Freezes rather than fleeing - which is why people step on them.
Hisses loudly, strikes with its mouth shut, then flops over and plays dead.
Where it lives
Eastern US from Massachusetts and New York south to the Florida panhandle, west to Iowa, eastern Kansas, Oklahoma and eastern Texas.
Eastern US: southern New Hampshire and Ontario south through Florida, west to Minnesota, southeastern South Dakota, Kansas and Texas.