A Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus) in Minnesota, and Historical Reports of Other Pit Vipers Unexpected in the Upper Midwest Philip A. Cochran* Abstract - The collection of an Agkistrodon piscivorus (Cottonmouth) on a barge in Winona, MN lends credence to the belief that this species may occasionally be carried up the Mississippi River via commercial boat traffic. Consideration is given to reports of other crotaline snakes not expected to occur in the upper Mississippi River drainage, including Agkistrodon contortrix (Copperhead), Crotalus viridis (Prairie Rattlesnake), and Crotalus atrox (Western Diamondback Rattlesnake). The main geographic range of Agkistrodon piscivorus leucostoma (Troost) (Western Cottonmouth) includes the Mississippi River from the Gulf Coast upstream to southern Illinois and Missouri, with reports of disjunct populations in southern Indiana and north central Missouri (Gloyd and Conant 1990). Farther north, however, Nerodia sipedon (Linnaeus) (Northern Water Snake) are killed by members of the public who believe that they are Cottonmouths (Oldfield and Moriarty 1994), and one can sometimes hear the statement that Cottonmouths have been carried up the Mississippi River on barges. Indeed, the possibility of Cottonmouths having been transported by barges to southern Indiana was entertained by Forsyth et al. (1985). The purpose of this note is to report a recent actual occurrence of a Western Cottonmouth being carried to Minnesota on a barge. I also comment on accounts of other crotaline snakes not known to occur in the upper Mississippi River basin. Any species other than Crotalus horridus Linnaeus (Timber Rattlesnake) or Sistrurus catenatus (Rafinesque) (Massasauga) would be unexpected in this region. These accounts, to my knowledge, have not been treated in the regional herpetological literature (e.g., Casper 1996, Oldfield and Moriarty 1994, Vogt 1981). Agkistrodon piscivorus (Cottonmouth) The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, as part of its program to manage the threatened Timber Rattlesnake in southeastern Minnesota, issues permits to local citizens to function as rattlesnake responders and move “nuisance” snakes from residential areas into natural habitat, preferably within their home ranges. On 25 September 2006, one of the responders received a call from the Winona Law Enforcement Center about a snake on a commercial barge docked in a fleeting area off the main channel of the Mississippi River along Riverview Drive in Winona, Winona County, MN. The snake (total length: 637 mm, tail length: 98 mm) proved to be a Western Cottonmouth (Gloyd and Conant 1990). Although it was alive when captured, it was not in good condition, with many sores and patches of sloughing skin. The preserved specimen has been placed in the herpetological collection at the Bell Museum of Natural History, Minneapolis, MN (JFBM15215). The barge from which the snake was taken had been loaded with salt on 20 August on the Intracoastal Waterway approximately 209 km west of Baton Rouge, LA. The snake was discovered in an air space between the outer and inner hulls when the presence of water in this space was being investigated. There is at least one previous mention of Cottonmouths in Winona County. In his review of the county’s natural history, Holzinger (1913), a botanist who had taught Notes of the Northeastern Nat u ral ist, Issue 15/3, 2008 461 462 Northeastern Naturalist Notes Vol. 15, No. 3 for thirty years at the Winona State Normal School (now Winona State University), referred to “water moccasins” and “bluff rattle snakes” as venomous. Elsewhere in the same work, he referred to “water-snakes” (presumably Nerodia sipedon). Unfortunately, any specimens that Holzinger might have collected would have been destroyed in a fire at the college on 3 December 1922 (Dankert 2004), so it is not possible to match common names he used to actual species. Holzinger’s (1913) inclusion of Cottonmouths in Winona County is especially curious in that Bunnell (1897), in his own review of the county’s fauna, stated that along the upper Mississippi River, there were “no water moccasin snakes like those of the lower river, as far as I know.” Other Reports of Unexpected Pit Vipers Agkistrodon contortrix (Linnaeus) (Copperhead) As noted by Mossman (1988), even the great naturalist John Muir mistakenly thought that venomous Copperheads occurred in the vicinity of his childhood home in central Wisconsin (Muir 1965). His description most closely matches Elaphe vulpina (Baird and Girard) (Foxsnake), which is often referred to as a Copperhead (Oldfield and Moriarty 1994, Vogt 1981). An example of this usage from the Winona area on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River appeared under the heading “Trempealeau and Vicinity” in the Winona Daily Republican (14 May 1870): “The editor of the Record killed a six-foot copperhead snake the other day.” Crotalus atrox Baird and Girard (Western Diamondback Rattlesnake) Several writers have referred to diamondback or diamond rattlesnakes in the vicinity of Winona. Captain Frank Fugina, a river boat pilot originally from Fountain City, WI, referred to “diamond rattlers” in the bluffs (presumably Timber Rattlesnakes) and “swamp rattlers” (Massasaugas) in the river bottoms, but the context of his statement that “spotted adders are very scarce” implied that he believed that a third venomous species was present (Fugina 1945). The name “spotted adder” has been applied to Lampropeltis triangulum (Lacépède) (Milk Snake) (Vogt 1981) and to the Foxsnake (Oldfield and Moriarty (1994), neither of which Fugina (1945) included among a list of non-venomous species, although both species are fairly common. Arnold Rank was a bounty hunter in Lanesboro in Fillmore County who, according to Drake and Drake (1969), killed over 2000 rattlesnakes during his career. Most were “of the bluff and timber type rattlesnake but he has encountered and killed two diamond backs, one which was seven feet long and had 16 rattles.” It may be relevant that Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes have been reported from the vicinity of Viroqua, Vernon County, WI, approximately 84 km from Winona (Pope 1928, 1930, 1931). Although Pope (1928) entertained the possibility that the species had dispersed up the Mississippi River valley, he eventually seemed convinced that the snakes were derived from escapees from a circus near Pittsville in Wood County, approximately 97 km to the northeast (Pope 1931). Subsequent authors dismissed the diamondbacks as either aberrant Timber Rattlesnakes (Schorger 1967–1968) or a colony descended from the Wood County escapees (Schorger 1967–1968, Klauber 1972, Vogt 1981), but the latter inexplicably referred to a circus train derailment in the 1930s (perhaps a typographical error). Although the idea that the Vernon County diamondbacks were derived from circus escapees seems plausible, assuming that the colony resulted specifically from escapees in Wood County during the 1920s seems predicated on a remarkably rapid dispersal from one location to the other, and it ignores testimony that diamondbacks had occurred in the Viroqua region for some time prior to when Pope was actually provided with a specimen (Pope 1931). 2008 Northeastern Naturalist Notes 463 Regardless of the provenance of the Vernon County diamondbacks, it is possible that reports of their existence might have spurred similar, albeit erroneous, reports in the Winona region. A potential catalyst for this effect was the tendency for local newspapers to reprint anecdotes that originally appeared in other newspapers from the same region (Cochran 2007). To test this hypothesis, I took advantage of the Winona Newspaper Project, a web site that permits electronic searches of newspapers published during the 19th and early 20th centuries in Winona, MN (www.winona.edu/ library/databases/winonanewspapers.htm). Of hundreds of references to rattlesnakes from 1862 to 1945, I found only five references to diamond or diamondback rattlesnakes, all in the Winona Republican-Herald: 8 August 1928: Minneapolis Woman Bitten By Poison Snake Will Recover—Minneapolis (AP). Mrs. Grace Wiley, museum curator at the Minneapolis public library who was bitten four times Monday by a Black Diamond rattlesnake, will recover, Minneapolis General hospital authorities said today. Her condition is much improved and she will remain in the hospital only about a week. 8 August 1934: Beaver. Peter Canz killed a big diamond rattlesnake last week in the road near the Decker farm. 29 June 1935: Truck Driver, Bitten by Rattlesnake, Lives—Rochester, MN (AP). Bitten by a diamond back rattlesnake, Anders Westergaard, Rochester truck driver, is recovering in a hospital here. He was inspecting land in the Root river area Thursday when he was struck on the ankle. 20 September 1935: Minneapolis (AP). A bent for handling snakes, which she treated as pets, won prominence for Mrs. Grace Wiley, discharged reptile curator at the Brookfield, Ill., zoo, while she was museum curator at the public library here. Once near death from the bite of a diamond back rattlesnake, Mrs. Wiley always claimed that when a reptile bit her “it was my own fault.” Snakes bit her several times. She claimed to have been the only person to have raised rattlesnakes in captivity. 10 July 1944: Beautiful Snake. Earl Felsch, who lives near Minneiska was in Saturday with one of the most beautiful specimen of the Minnesota diamond rattlesnake that we have seen for a long time. It was three feet long, had 15 rattles and was almost perfectly marked. He caught it alive and plans to keep it awhile for a pet. From these accounts, there is no evidence that use of the term “diamond” or “diamondback” in southeastern Minnesota was spurred by the capture of Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes near Viroqua. Rather, publicity surrounding the activities of Grace Wiley with captive snakes (Murphy and Jacques 2005) may have helped raise these names in the public’s consciousness. In modern times, several species of captive exotic venomous snakes, including the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, have been involved in cases of envenomation in Minnesota (Keyler 2005). Crotalus viridis (Rafinesque) (Prairie Rattlesnake) In their report on birds of a valley near Winona, Cyr and Freking (1971) wrote, “We saw a snake closely resembling a prairie rattler as it was robbing a Robin’s nest, but we are not certain of this identification.” This report is easily dismissed as a misidentified Timber Rattlesnake, which I have observed in the same valley. Cyr and Freking (1971) listed five other snake species, but did not mention Timber Rattlesnakes. Sajdak and Bartz (2004) recently reported a case of a Timber Rattlesnake in northeastern Iowa preying upon a bird in a tree well above the ground, and I was told by a landowner in Winona that the Timber Rattlesnake I was removing from her yard was initially detected because it was being harassed by a bird (see also Clark 2005). Acknowledgments. I thank fellow rattlesnake responders Joe Bronk, who brought the Cottonmouth to me for confirmation of its identification, and Dave Palmquist, who provided useful discussion. Stephen Schmitt helped locate old newspaper articles. 464 Northeastern Naturalist Notes Vol. 15, No. 3 Literature Cited Bunnell, L.H. 1897. Winona and its Environs on the Mississippi in Ancient and Modern Days. Jones and Kroeger, Printers and Publishers, Winona, MN. 694 pp. Casper, G.S. 1996. 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Bartz. 2004. Natural history note: Crotalus horridus (Timber Rattlesnake). Arboreality, diet. Herpetological Review 35:60–61. Schorger, A.W. 1967–68. Rattlesnakes in early Wisconsin. Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters 56:29–48. Vogt, R.C. 1981. Natural History of Amphibians and Reptiles of Wisconsin. Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee, WI. 205 pp. *Biology Department, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, 700 Terrace Heights, Winona, MN 55987; pcochran@smumn.edu.