Mississippi Green Water Snake ²

Mississippi Green Water Snakes are the least common water snakes at the Arboretum. Heavy-bodied and fairly large, these highly aquatic snakes are often mistaken for Cottonmouths ("water moccasins"). However, while water snakes will flatten their heads and bite aggressively if handled, they are not venomous. They are surprisingly graceful swimmers, keeping their bodies mostly submerged (Cottonmouths are clumsy swimmers and hold their bodies mostly out of the water). Mississippi Green Water Snakes are usually a dark, olive green with mottled black bands and a yellowish belly. Look closely and you will see their scales are strongly ridged, giving them a rough texture. They eat aquatic prey like frogs and fish.

Sources and Credits

1. (c) Todd Pierson, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://www.flickr.com/photos/40293555@N03/5691167204
2. Adapted by hancnaturalist from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerodia_cyclopion

More Info

• iNat taxon page
• Animal Diversity Web
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• BOLD Systems BIN search
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
• HerpMapper
• NatureServe Explorer 2.0
• Snake Database
• The Reptile Database
• VertNet

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