Florida Snakes
Posted by Owen Jones in Uncategorized, tags: advice, animals, exotic, florida, other, outdoors, pets, poison, reptiles, snakes, toxins, tropical, Uncategorized, USA, venomFlorida snakes, together with the many turtles, lizards, alligators and other reptiles are part of a complex wildlife structure that plays an incredible role in Florida’s ecosystem maintenance. Florida snakes species are numerous: there are actually forty-four species living in incredibly varied habitats, from salt marshes to fresh water marshes and dry uplands or coastal mangrove swamps to residential areas.
Only six Florida snakes are poisonous, and they happily coexist with their non-poisonous cousins, even venturing into towns and cities too. The best way to stay out of trouble with snakes is to care enough to learn about their morphology and therefore become able to distinguish between these Florida snakes. Avoidance is the best approach a person can adopt in relation to snakes.
The Coral snake and pit vipers are by far the most dangerous of Florida snakes. They can be identified by quite a wide range of characteristics. Pit vipers include the Rattlesnake, the Cottonmouth and the Copperhead. They all have in common: vertical eye pupils, a v-shaped head and facial pit sensors: one between the eyes and nostrils and the others along each side of the head.
The venom of this type of Florida snakes is haemotoxic, which means that their poison works on the red blood cells, destroying the walls of the blood vessels and causing uncontrolled bleeding. Coral snakes however, use a neurotoxic venom, the toxins of which act on the body’s nerves causing paralysis.
Most of the snake bites reported every year in the United States are attacks by Florida snakes or by rattlesnakes to be precise. Because their venom spreads quickly through the body, the victim will almost certainly die within thirty minutes without the immediate injection of anti-venom.
A one exception in this class of Florida snakes is the copperhead, because its venom very rarely, if ever, requires anti-venom. Their toxin is the least powerful and therefore they are regarded as the least dangerous of all the venomous Florida snakes.
It is because of the danger they present that poisonous snakes are the first kind to attract attention, however the most common of Florida snakes is the Black Racer, which is a non-toxic species that relies on very sharp fangs to capture its prey.
Although the usual tendency of home owners is to remove snakes from their properties, specialists stress the fact that, without them, rodents would breed out of control giving us even more cause for concern.
Therefore, unless there are any exceptional reasons for worrying, like snakes nesting in large numbers in your garden or outhouses, there is no reason to upset the lives of these usually shy, useful animals.
Interested in the Florida snakes? To learn more about snakes visit Caring for Snakes our new web site.
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