Is this particular snake poisonous?

Question

I live in VA, up by Maryland and the D.C area, we have poisonous snakes like copperheads, and water moccasins right where I live, but there is also a black snake, which Im not exactly sure, if its poisonous, it has a flat head, and is long and black, without any markings, I would appreciate some information on it, and I'd like to know if its really venomous.

Answer 1

I live in VA as well.  There are only 3 poisonous snakes in this area.  Copperheads (as you mentioned), Cottonmouths (the proper name for what locals call water moccasins) and the Timber Rattlesnake.  If a snake has a triangular head where it is wide back by the jaw, that usually means it is a pit viper with venom glands.

Most black-colored snakes are non-poisonous, but you don't want to play with them unless you are sure what type of snake you have, because for example, a Cottonmouth can be dark-colored when a juvenile.  It is too hard to tell you for sure without seeing it.

Answer 2

There are no snakes in North America that are black and venomous unless it is some sort of melanistic mutation.  It sounds sort of like an indigo snake.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=...

Answer 3

Could be a Northern Black Racer, he is non-poisonous.

Adult Black Racers are satiny or shiny black above and gray or bluish-gray on the belly. They have a white on the chin and throat. Juvenile racers begin life strongly marked with blotches of dark gray, brown and red. By the time they are 20 inches in length they should have acquired the adult coloration.

When most persons have encountered snakes they describe as "black snakes" they have usually encountered either the Black Racer or the Black Rat Snake. If the "black snake" quickly slithered away it probably was a Black Racer. If it froze in place or crawled deliberately away, it was probably a Black Rat Snake.

Black Racers are diurnal (daylight) hunters. They eat rodents, birds, frogs, lizards and insects. I once heard a loud squawking noise from my yard. It was about noon on a bright, warm summer day. Upon going outside to investigate, I found in the middle of the lawn a large Black Racer swallowing a medium-sized Bullfrog. It was the Bullfrog that was squawking.

The Black Racer is the only native snake species which I have ever seen attack a person who was not trying to capture or molest it. It was a warm May morning. My brother and I were loading bales of fescue hay onto a truck. My brother felt something hitting against his leg. Looking down he found a small adult Black Racer trying to bite him through his pant leg. Racers were common in the area so he just grasped the snake and tossed to the side so it would not be run over by the truck. Within a moment, the spunky little snake was back attacking his leg. This time he carried the snake further away before releasing it. Of course, the snake could not inflict any harm through the bluejeans. We speculated that we may have interrupted a male during courtship, but we did not see another Racer in the vicinity.

http://www.snakesandfrogs.com/scra/snake...

Answer 4

Sounds like a standard black rat snake.  They are not venomous and they eat lots of mice and rats.  They're good snakes.  He would only bite you if you cornered him and maybe not even then.

Answer 5

an old moccasin will get very dark, nearly black, but will still have that triangular head and the facial markings. If it's a truly black snake, as has been mentioned, it isn't venomous unless it's a genetic mutation. It could be a black ratsnake or a black racer, but it isn't an indigo, they're not native to your area, just Florida and Georgia and they're a federally endangered species... there's only one person with a captive breeding program that I know of, and if anyone in your area were to own one, it wouldn't be loose... they're waaay to expensive...

black racer: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/32/985605... (solid color belly)

black rat: http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/ima... (checkered belly) (please realize that with ratsnakes, coloration can vary between individuals... I realize the image I linked you to has white flecks, but it's the belly that matters here... if it's a black ratsnake with no pattern it will be difficult to tell the difference between it and a racer without seeing the belly or knowing the subtle differences between a ratsnake head and a racer head.)