Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Cottonmouth vs Toad?

Came home last night, about to work on suzuki and as I grabbed a can of lube.. I walked to the suzuki and thought.. hmm something by my wading boots wasn't quite right and the lab is acting a bit iffy... go back... sure nuff, cottonmouth in the corner of the carport under the air tank.... just about 2 inches of tail showing....

Long story short, all dogs away and sharpshooter and done.

But he'd bitten the toad, toad was all swoll up, BIG toad. Had blood on its side where it was bitten. I could hear all the rustling while trying to remove wade boots and manuever without getting struck... he/she was after the toad and probably just had struck.

Here is the question...I kept the toad corralled for 3 plus hours... never died... and finally escaped. I'd have thought 3 hours was enough to die. Just was curious. Could they be immune somehow?

Dunno how the snake was going to eat him as he was as big as a hardball almost... snake was only 3 footer...

Possible explanations:

1.) No envenomation. A dry bite.

2.) Wasn't a cottonmouth. People in and north of Atlanta swear up and down that they see Cottonmouths, but according to biologists, you need to go south of Atlanta to find them. We do have plenty of brown water snakes that eat frogs and toads and all sorts of things. Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Water_Snake

cottonmouths are pit vipers, pit viper venom is geared towards warm blooded prey cottonmouth venom likely is pretty ineffective against cold blooded critters like toads...

venom can be very selective...a good example is the Sydney funnelweb spider, its venom is harmless towards cats an dogs but for some reason its highly reactive against primates and can kill a human.....

hognosed snakes that everyone considers harmless are actually venomous but their venom is so geared towards amphibians at most it creates a mild rash in people....

your average garter snake is also venomous but it to is geared towards cold blooded prey and only causes a mild irritation in people....

Sheridan...interesting...Ive been bitten a couple times by garter snakes while fooling around with them, and it did exactly that...

You gotta work hard at it to get bitten by a hog nose...

some close relatives of garters over in Asia have no fangs like garters but carry a venom powerful enough to kill a small adult human.....there are about 10 species and only a couple of them have been studied for their venom....

You learn something new on here everyday

Sooooooo, Sheridan...is the venom in the garters a nasty mouth product like Komodos, or a real venom...maybe rear-fanged????

You and me both learn...

I'd have assumed it couldn't be dry because it was seemingly bitten more than once from the looks of things and from all the noise. I"d have assumed not dry since it appeared to be trying to kill the toad.

And yeah, it may not be cottonmouth to some folks, we have water moccasins and then the cottonmouth variety, but there's a passle of folks down here that'll argue ya... the cottonmouths here are very dark in color, and have a very white mouth, stink to high heaven, typically can be very aggressive also. And have that typical triangular poisionus shape of head and not afraid to bite... Iv'e been chased a number of times by them, they'll crawl in the boat with you in the spring, and I've been bitten once by an aggressive one, but luckily in rubber boots that stopped it.

Just looked at the link.. definitely not that one.. I figured that was going to be the pic... we do have a number of those around too.

real venom.....the bacteria in komodos is over played, not really much worse than a feral dogs mouth and the same bacteraia are present in both, komodos are venomous as are most species of monitor lizards.....

someone(Dr. Brian Fry IIRC) finally figured out the komodo venom when they realized bitten water buffalo where keeling over faster than bacteria can reproduce to cause it.....sure enough monitor lizards have a venom gland in their lower jaw similar to gila monsters and beaded lizards which are distant cousins....monitors however dont have the grooved teeth to help out...

i believe they have found the venom gland in every monitor species they have went looking for it in...

rost...I lived in the deep south for a number of years and was never able to pin anyone down on exactly what the difference between a water moccasin and a cottonmouth was...
can you shed any light there??? Or anybnody else??? I consider myself a snake aficianado, but have never had that one quantified....

And as someone said, theres a buttload of water snakes that mimic Moccasins pretty effectively...

Same snake.

Dats always been my impression....

After reading this thread y'all have reinforced my dad's words: "the only good snake is a dead snake!"

I just kill them all. That's how I deal with them. Flame on, I don't care. I hate snakes.

better mousers than any barn cat....

Sassy.....you've been talkin' to Les about spiders again.....

Nope, he likes snakes and hates spiders. I hate them both.

Cottenmouths are found around water for the most part and commonly eat frogs and fish. That being said a frog and a toad aren't the same critter .

Yeah...but he wants to kill all the spiders too....

" Hate" is such a strong word...

Some of you guys need Creepy Crawly Sensitivity Counseling...