Copperhead - What killed it ??

Found in neighbors driveway (watering their plants while they are away). Wasn't there Saturday morning. Found it this morning (May 30). Hard to see in images, but something grabbed it directly behind the head. What would kill a snake but not eat it ?? We do have a calico cat that we discovered "fencing" with a grown copperhead last summer, but ...

I'm guessing the cat got him.

I would guess a cat as well. They will chew on a snakes head but rarely eat it

We found a similar thing a few years back while hunting. A full grown recently killed 3+ foot Copperhead with it's head missing in the woods. Strangest thing...thought maybe an owl or something?

Somebody mow the yard the past couple days?

cat

That's a new born snake too. Looks like a cat got a hold of it.

Mugged by a cat

ryanh487 said:

Somebody mow the yard the past couple days?

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Good thought, but no lawn mowers or string trimmers lately, we've had a good bit of rain over the past couple of weeks.

Googled "cats killing snakes video". I'll be darned, cats "cuff" the snakes behind the head - claws extended. That, and the way copperheads hold their ground with their heads up at an angle, not a good day for the little copperhead.

Cats are perfectly capable of killing Copperheads, and rarely eat them.

Cats are good for something by golly, least outside ones!!! I see the yellow tip on the tail just recently read about juvenile copperheads having a yellow tail. I don't reken I ever saw a small one before.

When I was growing up we had a big tomcat that would chase every dog that entered the yard. One day he showed up at the house with a 6 foot black snake that he had killed.

Somebody killed it and a neighborhood animal drug the carcass up.

loom like a hoe or a rake kilt it.

I surely think this was done by a cat.

While growing up out in the country, I saw some strange things happen. Hopefully, others might have seen this same thing happen as well.

One of the strangest things that I have ever seen was a cat actually "charm" a snake, a mockingbird and also a squirrel and then pounce on it and kill it.

My parents called it "charming" because the cat would crouch down flat on the ground and slowly sneak up on whatever critter it planned to attack and when the cat finally got really close, it would begin to move its tail back and forth, back and forth. This action seemed to hypnotize the critter as it remained completely still. Then all at once the cat would jump forward and grab the critter right behind the head and hang on to it until it ultimately killed it. I have actually watched a cat do this to kill a bird, a snake and also a squirrel. In the case of the squirrel, the cat continued to hang onto the back of the neck and wrestled around on the ground for close to 30 minutes before the squirrel finally died.

My Father and I also watched a cat do this to a covey of quail that were all fairly close on the ground together. We were quail hunting at the time. We saw the cat's tail moving back and forth in the grass for close to a minute before the cat lunged forward toward one of the quail. This closest quail turned out to be too fast for this cat. My Father's Browning 12 gauge also turned out to be too fast for this cat as it did not survive. I remember that my Father said that there were no houses anywhere around within a mile or more from this cat too.

My Father was a very avid quail hunter and he hated cats all of his life because he thought that cats actually killed more quail than hunters did so he did his best to kill every cat that he could (with the exception on my two cats while I was growing up that Mother threatened him not to bother). This happened back in the late 60's long before we had problems with coyotes and fire-ants.

My Father actually shot and killed Mr. Tankersley's cat while it was sitting on the top of his big over-sized mailbox one day as he and my Brother-in-Law were riding by very slowly. My Father never came to a stop and he shot right out of the open window of his truck. He was so close that the blast apparently didn't damage the actually mailbox either because I drove by it the following weekend and never saw any damage on it. I still own property down the road from Mr. Tankersley's homeplace (he and his wife and their daughter and son are all deceased now, so I can tell this story now without being fearful about it).

I just realized that every trailcam photo that I have ever posted on here during the past 5-6 years were all taken within a mile of the mailbox mentioned above too !!!!

Cat got it and that's definitely a juvy.

rjcruiser said:

I'm guessing the cat got him.

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X2.. Cat.. Especially if you seen one cruising the fence.

My cat caught a bat right about 5 foot off the ground.

He's an old man now and in the X'x house.
She moved to town so he don't get out much.

elfiii said:

Cat got it and that's definitely a juvy.

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Yea, that "sulfur tipped tail" is a dead giveaway for juvenile copperheads and cottonmouths. Caught too many of those little varmints... As to what killed it, I don`t know? Could have been any number of things. It might have just given up the ghost on its own. Judging by the pic, it had been dead long enough that it`s really hard to tell. One thing is for sure and for certain though. It is dead.

And contrary to local legends, the venom of the babies is not more potent than adults, nor is the bite more deadly.

I had an old Bluetick that would grab a snake behind the head. He ended up getting bit by a Cottonmouth.

Maybe the roly polys got it?