BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. – A St. Stephen man hunting for deer crossed paths with a pretty scary sight over the weekend: a giant cottonmouth.
According to Phillip Ballentine, he stumbled upon the venomous snake while trying to round up his dogs near Santee Swamp.
“I saw him in the road. I actually thought it was a rattlesnake and was trying to find a stick to kill him, but when I got close, I figured out it was a cottonmouth,” Ballentine said. “I’ve been in this river swamp my whole life. This is by far the largest cottonmouth I’ve ever seen. A real whopper!”
Ballentine used a .45 handgun to kill the snake, which he estimated was around 5 feet long.
Also commonly referred to as “water moccasins,” adult cottonmouths are typically 3 to 4 feet in length but can reach lengths in excess of 5 feet, according to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.
Cottonmouths are almost always associated with some type of wetland. Unlike other venomous snakes that generally attempt to escape from humans, the cottonmouth will stand its ground, according to SCDNR reptile experts.
The largest cottonmouth on record was just over 6 feet, and it was found “in the Dismal Swamp region near the Virginia-North Carolina line,” according to the Virginia Herpetological Society.
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