Here’s the danger!

May 21, 2024 • 11:45 am

Did you spot the problem with picking up the wrench in this morning’s photo?

Here’s why you want to stay away: there’s an Eastern Copperhead snake right there (Agkistrodon contortrix). I’ve circled it, but it’s not hard to see.

31 thoughts on “Here’s the danger!”

  4. Since I like to have things to worry about, I googled “copperhead snake bites in Georgia,” the state where I live. This was the AI-generated answer to my query:

    > Copperheads are common in Georgia, and bites are rare, especially to the feet

    The more I think about that last bit about feet, the more questions I have.

    I actually do know of one victim of a copperhead snake bite near me. It was the 5-year-old daughter of an acquaintance. What made it even more terrifying for the mother was the fact that the bite occurred when they were a couple miles down a rural hiking trail and thus far from help. The poor kid had to be hospitalized, although she was fine in the end.

    1. Perfect example of an “AI” failure, where the large language model is unable to recognize the logical problem with the sequence of those snippets/statements. To make sense, it should have said, “Copperheads are common in Georgia, but bites are rare. The bites are most likely (especially) to the feet.”

      1. Nice explanation. Not knowing anything about Copperhead snakes, I wondered if AI meant they leapt up and launched themselves at hands or faces!

    2. Some years back I was hiking with my family in Maryland. We were visiting my wife’s family in Delaware, where venomous snakes are apparently rare, and we live in Ottawa, Canada, where there are no venomous snakes at all (indeed there are only three species of snakes that are seen regularly, all harmless); venomous snakes were therefore not exactly on my radar. My son, who I’m going to guess was about 12 at the time, had gone on ahead but came back to casually tell us that there was a snake near the trail. I got quite a shock when I saw it was a copperhead. I felt remiss as a parent to not have warned my son about this possibility before the hike, but fortunately he hadn’t gone close to it. Copperheads aren’t aggressive and their venom isn’t as strong as that of many other venomous species but you sure don’t want to risk being bitten by one! Later my brother-in-law told me that copperheads are particularly common in that part of Maryland, which was on the other side of the Susquehanna River. I wondered whether the river might be a natural barrier to the spread of copperheads to Delaware but given that other snakes are common there I wasn’t too convinced by my own explanation. Perhaps there simply isn’t ideal habitat for copperheads in Delaware.

      1. Good story, Paul. I’m a fellow Ottawan, and I have a slightly similar story to tell.

        In 1979, I was sent on my first ever business trip, a two-week technical course in Pasadena, California. Seeing as we had a weekend off in the middle of the course, our instructor (a local) offered to take us students to a park in the hills south of LA on the Saturday. He brought his very nice boat along to ferry us all to a less-crowded remote beach on the lake in the park.

        After sitting on the beach in the hot California sun for a while (I never learned to swim), I decided to go for a walk in the shady wooded area above the beach. I remember blissfully thinking that the terrain and vegetation reminded me so much of being in the Gatineau Hills north of Ottawa.

        At one point, I decided to go off the paved trail to see if I could find a clearing to get a better view of the overall area. I came to a rocky outcrop overlooking the lake and the beach below. I sat down on the smooth exposed rock to relax and take in the view.

        After a bit, I glanced about idly. To my shock, there was a large shed snakeskin no more than 50cm away from my hand! In an instant, I realized how careless I had been in an area with poisonous snakes, choosing to sit down in what was certainly a popular place for snakes to sun themselves!

        I very slowly and cautiously got up and made my way back to the paved trail, and stuck to it for the rest of my walk. I never did actually see a live snake, though. Whew!

        βPer

        1. Thanks for the story! For us Ottawans, it can be hard to be snake-conscious, given that they’re simply not a concern here. We are increasingly having to be tick-conscious, though. Unfortunately.

          1. Yes. I’m glad that my elderly cats are no longer going outside.

            Is West Nile virus still a risk? Being an amateur astronomer, I used to fret about them. You know how numerous they can be at night around here.

      1. Interesting! The statement about the rarity of bites to the feet makes more sense when you realize it was probably derived from the article you link to, which is about a child who was bitten on the foot:

        “Copperheads are plentiful in Georgia, but bites are rare, especially to the feet. Only 13% occur on the legs or feet. Most bites occur when people try to handle them.”

        I guess the point was that most bites are to people who provoke the snakes, and not to people who are just innocently tramping in the woods.

  5. Good stereoscopic vision (or a stereoscopic, i.e. 3D photo) would facilitate detection of this hazard. About 90% of people have good stereoscopic vision, and I predict that with some attention paid (i.e. not distracted), they would have had no trouble noticing the snake in a 3D photo (let alone in vivo). It would make an interesting experiment… perhaps I will pursue it.

    1. My wife has little-to-no stereoscopic vision, which she often dramatically manifests when I’m driving. I hate tailgaters, so no one can accuse me of driving too close to the vehicles in front of me. Regardless, my wife often reacts as if we are about to crash, either exclaiming or cringing. She tries to avoid looking forward by reading a book or looking at her phone. But if she senses braking, she will sometimes look up and forward … and exclaim — which can be very distracting (and potentially dangerous). My wife now will occasionally sit behind me in the car when we drive. (She could identify the snake only when I showed her where it is in the photo.)

      1. (My wife has little-to-no problem when she herself is driving, though she tends to stay twice or three times the distance than I do behind the car in front. This may be because of her diminished stereoscopic vision, or it may only be because she’s been a passenger in two car accidents when her driver rear-ended the car in front. Also, when she’s driving, she’s in control. When she’s a passenger, she has no control of the brake, which makes her feel more vulnerable.)

    2. Yes, that is the inherent problem in these “spot the” photos, which also are dependent on the photo’s resolution. With my glasses on, I can see the real world at higher resolution than a typical photo. This photo is 1079 x 1789 pixels, which is only medium resolution.

      The one time I encountered a rattlesnake was gathering blueberries along a ridgetop in Virginia. I hopped off a small rock and suddenly heard the rattle, and before I even cognated it I leapt sideways about three feet out of pure instinct. Unfortunately in so doing my glasses fell off and landed right next to this very large snake, coiled and ready to strike. I found a stick and tried to retrieve the glasses, and by pure luck the stick lodged in between the nose pads.

      I was a bit shaken though and called it a day, fortunate to be alive. It was a very large snake. If I’d been bitten, I was far enough away from any help that I probably wouldn’t have made it.

      1. I often used to hike alone on Mount Tamalpais (San Francisco Bay Area). One day I had been sitting for about a half-hour near a trail quietly enjoying my modest lunch while gazing out toward the Pacific Ocean … when I noticed a few feet from me the immobile head and several inches of the body of what looked to be a rattlesnake peeking from a hole in the ground. Since it wasn’t coiled, I thought I was probably not in danger. But I slowly moved away with my belongings and continued my hike.

  6. What marvelous camouflage, tricky devil. I keep hearing that the coming cidada-thon will be manna from heaven for them. They might not be deadly, but reportedly their bite hurts like hell.

    1. Exactly. The best place for a pair of pliers mistaken for a wrench is to be cast into a snake pit, where it will never ruin a nut again.
      Odd that an orthopaedic surgeon in the original Xweet didn’t know the difference between a pliers and a wrench. :-(. They are supposed to be good with tools.

  9. Did anyone else notice that one of the handles of the pliers had a chunk missing from its tip? If you were tempted to reclaim the pliers, you’d be wise to grind down that rough edge!

    βPer

    1. Probably from someone trying to MacGiver an even bigger pair of pliers to clamp the jaws of the first pair tight enough to move (and ruin as above) a really stubborn nut.

      1. That makes sense. I was wondering how the break might have occurred. I’ve always worried about the handle bending or breaking close to the hinge but never near the tip.

        I wonder if they tried to use a couple of wrenches to extend the handles of the pliers. 😉

      1. Ha! I know it’s there but I’ll be damned if I can see it! I’m used to desert rattlers.

  11. I’ve lived in Australia for a decade and have only seen a handful of snakes and dangerous spiders.

    How often I can’t see the animal in these challenges suggests to me that’s not because they’re not there 😬

    1. That makes me feel better. I saw the horned toad. Period. In 3+ years of these things

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