Eastern copperhead
Agkistrodon contortrix
— Where the name comes from
Contortrix means “she who twists”, for the hourglass bands of the back, narrow across the spine and broad at the flanks: seen from the side they look like a row of sacks pinched in the middle. The English name, copperhead, looks at the head, a uniform coppery colour that vanishes among autumn leaves.
— Facts
- Group
- Reptiles · Reptilia
- Order
- Squamates
- Habitat
- Broadleaf woodland, scree, clearings, wooded suburbs
- Range
- The eastern and central United States
- Size
- 60–90 cm, up to 120 cm; 100–340 g
- Diet
- Mice, cicadas, frogs, lizards, caterpillars
- Lifespan
- 18 years
— Characteristics
- 01
The young have a yellow tail tip they wave like a worm to lure frogs.
- 02
It has heat pits and hunts in darkness by sensing warmth.
- 03
It is the snake that bites most people in America and kills almost none.
— What sets it apart
From its venom came a molecule studied against cancer. Contortrostatin, a protein whose job in a bite is to stop platelets clumping, also blocks tumour cells from anchoring to tissue in the laboratory and slows their spread: the work is still experimental, but it is another case in which a substance evolved to kill small mammals has turned out to be useful for understanding how our own cells move.
