those are a pair of those messndrawers snakus'
The differences I see are the water snake has distinctive yellow/orange stripes, while the cottonmouth has more defined black stripes. Also, it looks like the cottonmouth has black stripes on his cheeks. Are these good ways to identify each from one another? If not, what are the best ways to determine one from the other?
Nerodia water snake on the left, moccasin on the right.
Good lesson...
I thought I had never seen a water moccasin that wasn't dull gray, dull black, or black.
Makes me wonder about all those water snakes that I weren't scared of. Seen a few that were aggressive enough to chase my fishing lures back towards the boat...