08/21/2026
With fall slowly, maybe, possibly approaching, you will start to see movement from our slithering friends. There are many myths and stories about snakes that have led to a lot of fear. While we can’t help with all of them in one post, we can start with an easy one. The goal isn’t that you fall in love with snakes, but at least understand them, maybe even give them a little bit of respect.
Myth 1: snake + water = cottonmouth/water moccasin. In Fort Worth, we have three main snakes that you find near water (though all snakes can swim and need to drink). We have the Diamondback Water Snake, known for being nonvenomous, having a thick body, and “chain-link fence” pattern down its back. Pictures A-D show the chain-link pattern when it is easily visible. The second snake is the Plain-Bellied Water Snake. They are also nonvenomous, thick bodied, and their pattern is a mostly symmetrical pattern down the back where the “line” in-between the dark blotches touch dark blotches on the underside of the snake. Pictures E-G show this pattern with E showing an abnormality and G showing a very dark coloration. The last snake is the Cottonmouth. This is the venomous one of the trio and should be treated with caution. They are also thick bodied and sometimes the pattern is hard to see. If visible, it will look like random blotches of different sizes and shapes to most people. They will usually curl up and display their open mouth, showing off the white “cotton” color as a warning. Pictures H and I show cottonmouths.
So, if the pattern is too hard to recognize, is there an easy method to at least see which is the venomous one? Yes! As shown in pictures A and F, the dark lines are a giveaway of a water snake being nonvenomous. The cottonmouth has a raccoon-type stripe across the eye as seen in picture F. Since there was such an awesome amount of good “dragon” pictures, please post your water snake ones if you have any! Since there are people who love snakes, please do not post any pictures of dead snakes. The goal here is to educate and collaborate. If someone is unsure of which snake they post, those in the know, please help ID them. If you do not know but want to guess, please type “guess” in the comment.
