{"id":635298,"date":"2026-05-10T19:50:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T19:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/635298\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T19:50:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T19:50:21","slug":"this-south-carolina-snake-makes-meals-of-copperheads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/635298\/","title":{"rendered":"This South Carolina snake makes meals of copperheads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/kingsnake .png\"   width=\"1200\" height=\"674\" title=\"A kingsnake wrapped around a copperhead, squeezing it to death, in a South Carolina wildlife management area.\" alt=\"A kingsnake wrapped around a copperhead, squeezing it to death, in a South Carolina wildlife management area.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        A kingsnake wrapped around a copperhead, squeezing it to death, in a South Carolina wildlife management area.<\/p>\n<p>                Andrew Grosse\/provided<\/p>\n<p>One thing many folks who are not herpetologists don\u2019t know or perhaps don\u2019t want to admit is there are good snakes.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s something to think about as all those snakes that have been hiding in South Carolina dens through the winter are slithering out into the warm weather.<\/p>\n<p>And for people who are deathly afraid of copperheads and rattlesnakes this is good information because they don\u2019t need to grab their hoe and cut off a snake head.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"Follow nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dnr.sc.gov\/wildlife\/herps\/snakes.html\">Kingsnakes<\/a> will kill them and, shall we say, dispose of the remains.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"Follow nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dnr.sc.gov\/wildlife\/diamondbackterrapin\/researchstaff.html\">Andrew Grosse,<\/a> the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources herpetologist, knows it first hand. He was driving in a coastal wildlife management area overseen by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources when he saw a kingsnake wrapped around a copperhead, squeezing it to death.<\/p>\n<p>Most people don\u2019t see this eating ritual since kingsnakes are so secretive. In fact, you might have one living in your backyard and you don\u2019t even know it. They have shiny black skin and narrow bright yellow or whitish cross bands.<\/p>\n<p>They also eat rodents and other snakes, including cottonmouths.<\/p>\n<p>Copperhead and rattlesnakes venom doesn\u2019t phase kingsnakes.<\/p>\n<p>The kingsnake grabs the head of a striking venomous snake and then coils its body to constrict the airflow. Every time the victim snake breathes, the kingsnake tightens, until dinner is served.<\/p>\n<p>Grosse said kingsnakes can unhinge their jaws and take in animals much larger than you would think they could consume.<\/p>\n<p>And here\u2019s more good news, in a fight, kingsnakes will always win over copperheads unless they don\u2019t get a good grip to begin with and the copperhead can slither away. Kingsnakes are longer than copperheads \u2014 5 feet compared to 3 feet as adults \u2014 but not as big around as an adult rattlesnake.<\/p>\n<p>As a bonus, kingsnakes are not <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"Follow nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/a-z-animals.com\/blog\/are-kingsnakes-poisonous-or-dangerous\/\">aggressive, venomous or dangerous<\/a> to humans.<\/p>\n<p>South Carolina is home to 38 snake species, six of which are venomous.<\/p>\n<p>Grosse said as with all wildlife, the best thing to do if you see a kingsnake is just leave it alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A kingsnake wrapped around a copperhead, squeezing it to death, in a South Carolina wildlife management area. Andrew&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-635298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}