In the Company of Copperheads

It was cops-vs.-copperhead when police, responding to a call from a quiet neighborhood in Oxford, Mississippi, sent a patrol car to apprehend a large copperhead seen prowling, but the suspect escaped.  After an email reported the incident, which sounds like a scene in Southern Gothic fiction, I heard Paul Thorn’s version of “Snake Farm” on the radio. Inspiration strikes like a snake; copperhead research was meant to be. Besides, some of my potent memories of country living involve copperheads, who’re making their presence known after a wimpy winter set us up for an explosion of varmints like insects and snakes.

The Southern copperhead is formally called Agkistrodon contortix, but we’re on informal terms since we and he were born and raised in the same sultry patch of the USA. Most of us can’t help ourselves−we suffer from collective ophideophobia and lose our cool in the heat of summer when snakes like copperheads emerge, particularly when they’re thick and can be three to four feet long. If we could be objective, we’d see the beauty of this snake with a copper-hued head and pale greenish tan skin marked with darker hourglass shapes that mimic patterns of summer foliage in dappled sunlight. Copperhead cousins elsewhere have similar patterns on background colors ranging from pinkish to grayish with chestnut colored hourglasses. Wherever he lives, his camouflage cloaks him in invisibility, putting us in danger of blundering too close for either his or our comfort.  A shy guy, he hopes humans walk by blissfully unaware he’s oh so close and nervously chews his fingernails (figuratively speaking since no hands = no fingers or nails) whilst imagining the rude reaction he’ll get if noticed. His first instinct is to freeze; his second is to bite, but, hey, what’s a snake to do? What would you do if you had no arms, no legs and someone shrieked and came after you murderously wielding a sharp tool?

Granted, it’s hard to empathize and put ourselves in a snake’s shoes (heh heh). Because he loathes attention, he gives no warning. Rattlesnakes shake their tails like manic maracas; cottonmouths hiss and gape to show the stark white of their mouths, a shocking contrast to murky bodies accentuating fangs; copperheads sit motionless among leaves. All’s well if we don’t get too close, but, blind to his presence, we may tread on him or touch him inadvertently. There’s a whiff of cucumber scent as he lunges and bites, but it’s a warning with a teensy drop of venom through his hollow fangs and far from a lethal dose of 100 mg. The least potent of venomous snakes’ wicked juices, it’s potent enough to cause intense pain, hemorrhaging, swelling, altered pulse, nausea and damaged muscle and bone tissue if injected into hand or foot, where there’s less muscle mass to absorb it, but copperhead bites are rarely fatal. Advice for bite victims is laughable: stay calm (ha ha ha). Then immobilize the bitten area, keep it lower than the heart and get medical help. Weirdly, this snake’s venom contains a protein, contortrostatin, which disrupts the growth and spread of cancerous tumors and may be a future weapon in the war on cancer.

Shrinking violets with us, copperheads are “social” with their own kind and stay close to each other in areas used for denning, sunning, drinking, eating, and mating. They spend winter stacked side by side in a hibernaculum and allow other species like rattlers and rat snakes to join them. In summer they share a nest, one of which was under the guest wing of our house south of Natchez. In summer heat, they hunt at night, climbing trees to devour cicadas or ambushing and biting prey like baby rabbits, frogs, rodents, birds, etcetera—waiting for venom to take effect, swallowing the prey and efficiently digesting it. Venom destroys tissue and bone inside prey as enzymes in the snake’s digestive track do the outside. At our house, they dozed out of sight in daytime, coming out to sun on a brick wall behind a mint bed—which was creepy, but not as alarming as when I saw a sunbather heading to the wall freeze as my father walked by slowly then stopped to poke around with his cane. The snake could’ve struck but held his pose, yellow elliptical eyes watching intently, tongue flicking, as Papa tottered off and my heart started beating again.

Daytime activity is highest in spring and autumn, which are cooler and coincide with breeding times. Upon exiting winter digs in spring and prior to returning in fall, males get macho and wrestle each other, raising up, swaying back and forth, encircling an opponent’s neck, and pinning him to the ground, ideally with a female audience. Thinking “Cherchez la femme,” the victor tracks females’ pheromones with his sensory tongue until meeting a mate, approaching her with chin on ground and gleam in his eye. She responds with slow back and forth tail waving, increasing the pace to rapid whipping to signal “yes.” Courtship takes an hour if she’s coy. Actual mating can take up to eight and a half hours, after which the female wants nothing to do with mating and other males want nothing to do with her because her partner doused her with a pheromone that repels them. He continues to prowl for other mates, hence the expression “He’s a snake!” She cloisters herself with other females in a “birthing rookery,” a home for unwed mothers serving as summer nest or winter den. Eggs remain in her body until birthing time, and if mated in fall, fertilization is delayed until spring. Four to eight babies from seven to eight inches long are born looking like their parents, but they have yellow tipped tails to waggle at prey as a lure, which is good since Mommy Dearest deserts them, and they must fend for themselves.

The copperhead is responsible for more reported venomous bites than any other snake, but it’s not because he’s a vicious viper. If he had his way, he’d never get close enough to a human to strike, but he’s adapted to our overpopulation decreasing the wilderness and lives quietly in woodsy suburbs. Be alert, and if leaves on the ground have yellow eyes and take the shape of a coiled, nervous snake, don’t try to kill it. That’s how most people get bitten. Just back away, allow him to avoid a confrontation, and say a prayer of thanks to the powers that be.

It’s been some time since Lucile left her beloved country home, but coiled in her memories and dreams are the copperheads that shared a mutually uneasy peace with her.