Agkistrodon contortrix phaeogaster
Encyclopedia
Common names: Osage
Osage Nation
The Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...

 Copperhead.

Agkistrodon contortrix phaeogaster is a venomous
Venomous snake
"Poisonous snake" redirects here. For true poisonous snakes, see Rhabdophis.Venomous snakes are snakes which have venom glands and specialized teeth for the injection of venom...

 pitviper
Crotalinae
The Crotalinae, commonly known as "pit vipers" or crotaline snakes, are a subfamily of venomous vipers found in Asia and the Americas. They are distinguished by the presence of a heat-sensing pit organ located between the eye and the nostril on either side of the head...

 subspecies
Subspecies
Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

 found in the central region of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Description

Gloyd and Conant (1990) gives maximum total lengths of 990/723 mm for males/females, while mentioning that other sources give a maximum total length for this subspecies of 1,016 mm regardless of sex.

The color pattern is similar to that of A. c. mokasen
Agkistrodon contortrix mokasen
Agkistrodon contortrix mokasen is a venomous pitviper subspecies found in the eastern United States.-Description:The Northern copperhead grows to an average length of 61-91 cm , with a maximum of 134.6 cm ....

, except that the dark bands are in sharper contrast to the lighter ground color, and that there are no smaller dark spots between them.

Geographic range

Found in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in eastern Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

, extreme southeastern Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....

 and a large part of Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

. The type locality given is "10 miles south of McLouth, Jefferson County, Kansas."
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK