Additional fun factoids that weren't appropriate for the work blog:
- While juvenile snakes can have more potent venom than adult snakes, they do not have sufficient quantities to make their bites more dangerous that adult bites. They are still dangerous, true, but an adult snake can inject you with 17 times as much venom as its juvenile counterpart [source: Auerbach's Wilderness Medicine, 5th Edition]. Either way, don't mess with a snake!
- Copper Heads are the least scary of the scary US snakes as far as venom goes. Water moccasins/cotton mouths next. Rattle snakes are the big bad and cause the greatest number of deaths (in the US due to snake bites - although the overall number of deaths due to snake bites is really low and usually tied to something else, i.e. child being bitten, or old due with a heart condition having a heart attack after being bitten, etc.). Coral snakes could totally kill you but they aren't as mean or as prolific as rattlers, so their reputation isn't quite so bad.
- Juvenile water moccasins/cotton mouths look a LOT like copper heads. In fact, my snake might have actually been a water moccasin - he was kind of stubby and had a white mouth. The pretty brown/red leaf pattern on his back threw me off. Of course, if he was a juvie, he was a dang big juvie... either way. I'm glad he didn't bite me
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