Florida snakes together with the many turtles, lizards, alligators and other reptiles are part of a complex wildlife that plays an incredible role in Florida's ecosystem maintenance. Florida snakes are classified in forty species with highly varied habitats, from salt marshes to fresh water mars and dry uplands or coastal mangroves and residential areas. Only six Florida snakes are poisonous, and they are coexisting with the non-venomous varieties, venturing in urban settings too. The best way to stay out of trouble is to care enough to learn about their morphology and thus become able to distinguish among these Florida snakes. A relaxed attitude of avoidance is the wisest thing a human being could show in relation to snakes.
The poisonous Florida snakes count corals and pit vipers, they can be identified by a wide range of characteristics. Pit vipers include the rattlesnake, the cottonmouth and the copperhead, they all have elliptical eye pupils, facial pits between the nostrils and the eyes as well as on the lateral of the V-shaped head. These Florida snakes are haemotoxic as the toxin in the venom attacks the red blood cells, and causes unstoppable hemorrhage by the destruction of the blood vessel walls. Coral snakes on the other hand are neurotoxic, with the toxins in the venom acting on the body nerves and inducing paralysis.
Most of the snakebites reported in the United States every year are caused by Florida snakes, by rattlesnakes to be more precise. As their venom is very rapidly spreading in the body system, without immediate medical intervention, the victim will faces death within less than half an hour. A major exception in the group of Florida snakes is made by copperheads, the venom of which will hardly require antidotes. These gentler Florida snakes have less potent toxins and thus do not cause the same amount of harm as the rest of the pit vipers.
Even if poisonous snakes make the most important issue by the risk they pose, the most widespread of Florida snakes is the black racer, a non-toxic species that relies on very sharp fangs to hunt its prey. Although the main tendency of home owners is to remove snakes from their properties, specialists insist on the fact that in the absence of snakes, rodents would breed out of control pestering us even more. Therefore, unless there are any alarm bells ringing about snakes nesting in large numbers in people's gardens, there is no reason to interfere with the life of these creatures.
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