Description: This picture depicted a “Florida cottonmouth” snake, Agkistrodon p. conanti. When one thinks about snakes indigenous to the hurricane prone areas in the eastern United States, the cottonmouth or water moccasin is probably the first species to come to mind. The cottonmouth is a large dark heavy-bodied snake that ranges throughout a large portion the southeastern United States. Cottonmouths are the largest snakes in the New World Agkistrodon species complex and are the only members of the group that are semiaquatic (Gloyd and Conant, 1990). Three distinct subspecies are currently recognized; the “eastern”, “Florida”, and “western” cottonmouths. The Florida cottonmouth ranges from the southeastern extreme of South Carolina through coastal and southern Georgia, south throughout the state of Florida and west along the Gulf Coast to the eastern face of Mobile Bay in Alabama (Gloyd and Conant, 1990).

As the southernmost subspecie of cottonmouths, A. piscivorus conanti ranges from the southeastern extreme of South Carolina through coastal and southern Georgia, south throughout the state of Florida and west along the Gulf Coast to the eastern face of Mobile Bay in Alabama (Gloyd and Conant, 1990). It’s the largest member of the A. piscivorus complex. Its head is conspicuously marked with distinctive vertical stripes on the rostrum and mental regions creating a “handle bar mustache-like” marking on the rostrum when viewed from the front, an effect that is nicely visible in the specimen pictured here. The head also bears a prominent pair of bilateral dark cheek stripes that are markedly bordered by light areas above and below (Gloyd and Connant, 1990); a pattern that can be so striking, untrained people accustomed to seeing the less colorful “western” specie, sometimes have trouble identifying the Florida subspecie as a cottonmouth (Wozniak, personal observation).

This image was created in 2005 and was provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Edward J. Wozniak D.V.M. Suggest a better description.