Can a severed Texas rattlesnake head still bite you? We asked an expert
In 2018, a Corpus Christi man beheaded a rattlesnake that was prowling around his yard.
As the man bent down to dispose of the snake, the snake’s head bit him and sent venom into his bloodstream. After 26 doses of antivenom, the man survived but lost two fingers in the process.
While this may sound like an isolated incident, it’s actually a common occurrence, said Greg Pandelis, collections manager at UT Arlington’s Amphibian and Reptile Diversity Research Center.
“People will be messing with snakes or killing them, or fearing them, and then picking up the head after thinking, ‘Ooh, we got to take a photo with it or something’,” Pandelis said.
Texas is home to more than 105 different snake species, but only 15 snakes are considered dangerous to humans. Here’s what to know about headless snake bites.
How can a severed snake head still bite?
A snake, like most reptiles and cold-blooded animals, has a different physiology and nervous system than other animals.
A reptile’s nervous system tends to continue on after death, Pandelis said. This is why after a snake is killed, its body will still twitch and move around, and why its head can still bite.
The movement after death is not exclusive to reptiles, Pandelis said and pointed to the famous idiom — “running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”
“That’s a real thing that an animal will still move even after severing the central nervous system,” Pandelis said.
How venomous is a bite from a headless snake?
A headless snake bite would be just as venomous as a regular bite from from a full-bodied snake.
The venom glands for a snake are in the head, and they inject venom through fangs that act like a hypodermic needle, Pandelis said. When a snake bites, it compress the muscles over the glands that funnels the venom down the fang.
This is why the viper species of snakes, which includes copperheads and rattlesnakes, have a big triangular head.
“They have that very beefy triangular head and that’s because of those big venom glands that are on the side of the head towards the back,” Pandelis said.
How long should you wait to pick up a severed snake head?
In this case, Pandelis recommends not killing the snake in the first place.
Snakes, even venomous ones, are a part of the ecosystem and do serve a purpose, Pandelis said. Rat snakes eat small rodents, green snakes will snack on insects and garden snakes feed on worms.
Even a copperhead serves a purpose, as they primarily feed on cicadas, which helps keep the population low.
“It’s important to keep them here for that balance,” Pandelis said.
Instead of killing a snake, Pandelis recommends calling an expert to remove it.
There’s a large Facebook group called Texas Snake Identification that can help identify whether a snake is venomous or non-venomous. The Dallas Fort Worth Herpetological Society is another resource to seek out for snake identification.
Furthermore, Pandelis said people are putting themselves at risk of being bitten when they attempt to kill a snake.
“It’s always better, I think, especially if you’re not super familiar with snakes, to let someone else deal with it,” Pandelis said. “Oftentimes when people get bit, [it’s] when they are trying to kill it.”
