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doing outside chores with a hoe or rifle within easy reach in case he hears a suspicious rattle, hiss or slither. But even by his standards, July 31 brought an all-star reptile revue.
That Saturday morning while working at his barns. Bridges came across two rattlers which he dispatched with a club and a gun. The female was pregnant, carrying at least 20 baby rattlers. The same day he shot three copperheads found beside the Bridges’ mountain top swimming pool. Again, the female was about ready to repopulate the area with baby copperheads.
With snakes sunning themselves on rocks in Rappahannock's hollows and hillsides, it’s time to review a few points on recognizing poisonous varieties. The snakes killed by Bob Bridges represent the only poisonous species found in the area of Virginia: the timber rattlesnake and the copperhead. Of the total 36 species and subspecies of snakes in the entire Commonwealth, only four are poisonous.
In identifying poisonous varieties, remember:
—all poisonous snakes in Virginia are pit vipers; that is, they possess a heat-sensing pit located a little below the mid-point between eye and nostril on each side of the head. Nonpoisonous snakes do not have this pit.
—poisonous snakes have a single row of scales going clear across the underside of the forward portion of the tail. Nonpoisonous snakes have two rows down the entire tail.
—eyes of poisonous snakes have vertically elliptical pupils. The pupil is round in nonpoisnous snakes.
ID From A Distance
The problem in relying on pupil shape and scales on the underside of the tail for identification is that it’s
82.7%