‹ Compare two snakes
Timber Rattlesnake vs Eastern Ratsnake
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(c) Evan M. Raskin, some rights reserved (CC BY)
Timber Rattlesnake
Crotalus horridus
VenomousAlejandro Santillana, no rights reserved
Eastern Ratsnake
Pantherophis alleghaniensis
Non-venomousThe quick way to tell
Look at the tail. The Timber Rattlesnake has a rattle and vertical pupils. The ratsnake's tail tapers to a point, and its pupils are round.
Tail ★ This settles it
Solid black ahead of the rattle.
Tapers evenly; no rattle.
Head
Heavy triangular head, much wider than the neck, usually with no bold cheek stripe.
Narrow head barely wider than the neck; white or cream chin and throat.
Pattern
Dark chevrons - V shapes pointing forward - and often a rusty spine stripe.
Adults black, often with pale skin showing between scales; young gray and blotched.
Eyes
Vertical slit pupil; heat-sensing pit between eye and nostril.
Round pupil, fairly large dark eye; 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.
What it does
Very reluctant; usually lies still or rattles long before striking.
Climbs trees and walls; vibrates its tail in leaves when cornered.
Where it lives
Eastern US from New Hampshire and New York south to northern Florida, west to Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas and east Texas.
Atlantic states east of the Appalachians: western Vermont and southern New England south through New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas to Georgia and all of Florida east of the Apalachicola River, including the Keys.