Northern water snake The belly also varies in color. It can be white, yellow, or gray. Usually it also has reddish or black crescents. The northern water snake is nonvenomous and harmless to humans, but superficially resembles the venomous cottonmouth and is often killed unnecessarily as a result of this mistaken identity. The two can be easily distinguished by morphological traits: the water snake has a longer, more slender body and a flattened head the same width as the neck, round pupils, and no heat-sensing pits. The cottonmouth has a fatter body, a wedge-shaped head with prominent venom glands that are wider than
Banded water snake Banded water snake The banded water snake or southern water snake ("Nerodia fasciata") is a species of mostly aquatic, nonvenomous, colubrid snake endemic to the central and southeastern United States. It is found from Indiana, south to Louisiana and east to Florida. Adults of the banded water snake measures from in total length, with a record size (in the Florida subspecies) of in total length. In one study of the species, the average body mass of adult snakes was . It is typically gray, greenish-gray, or brown in color, with dark crossbanding. Many specimens are so dark in color that