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snake id (copper head?)

cant make it, i go to school 5 days a week and work 3 days so i am to swamped plus its over a 100 miles from my current location
 
That's definately a non-venomous water snake and it definately does not have vertical pupils. If you were able to get a close-up head shot, we could see that it has round pupils.

From the "Outdoor Alabama" website:

"Midland Water Snake - Common statewide, except southernmost portions of Coastal Plain. A conspicuous inhabitant of ponds, lakes, and streams, and the most frequently encountered water snake in the northern two-thirds of Alabama."

Baby Cottonmouths look very much like Copperheads. Here's a young Cottonmouth that I found in 2011:
youngcotton.jpg


It's not unusual for non-venomous water snakes to flatten their heads and either puff up or flatten out their bodies, making them look fatter, like this young Yellowbelly Water Snake I found is doing.
nightyellow.jpg
 
That does look pretty weird for a copperhead! That's why I never leave home without my snake chaps! Seriously though.. I'd tell him to quit messing with it unless he knows someone who can actually know what he's messing with!
 
A few years ago I was out shopping with a friend. Her husband was watching her kids. When we got home with her stuff, her son pulled a coral snake out of his pocket he had found and been playing with.
 
I'm with Chip here. Leave it alone. Let us know if your cousin is still with us tomorrow.
 
I'm a little more than late on this one. I am a wildlife biologist and am aware of most wild snakes on the eastern coast. While I'm a not directly familiar with the fauna of Alabama, I do have to say that this looks more like a watersnake.

Any time you're trying to I.D. A snake over media such as phone or the internet, try getting a few photos, of the head, the face, the back and of the tail. Make sure they are clear and in good lighting.

I have to say, I'm very disappointed in the people responding on this. As snake lovers/handlers you were all very quick to jump on the copperhead bandwagon. When an unidentified snake is in a person's possession and they're coming to you for advice (because you are the snake person they know and in their mind, you'll know exactly what it is right away) a response like "OMG IT'S A COPPERHEAD" is a good way to terrify the person, and quickly end the life of a snake.

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The Cat said:
It has poison glands, giving it the triangle head. It's definetly poisonous. +1 Copperhead
Click to expand...

#1, you are wrong simply for referring to them as "poison" glands.
#2 That head shape is hard to determine based on the angle. You need a good photo from directly above the snake. Water snakes generally have a very similar head shape, but are not venomous.
 
Based on this photo alone, I'm in the 90th percentile of certainty that this is some type of watersnake. Not that it matters at this point, but it bothered me.

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Being as the OP's last post in this thread was last September, I believe that the situation has probably already played out, for better or worse.
 
Pretty sure I made note of the time lapse, but since other people dug this out of the archives recently, what does it hurt?

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Doesn't hurt a thing... just doesn't help a thing, either. These kinds of threads happen all the time here (and on lots of message boards). Interesting topic, and then no resolution.
 
We'll probably never know. Looks like Neroida to me, but OP said vertical slit pupils.
 
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