You Cannot Always Tell if a Snake is Venomous by How it Swims
The Claim
Venomous snakes swim along the top of the water and non-venomous snakes swim submerged.
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Emerging story
A viral post claims that you can quickly identify whether or not a snake is venomous based on how it swims.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar found that a snake’s swimming behavior is not a reliable method of judging whether or not it’s venomous. While it is true that some venomous snakes, such as cottonmouths, tend to swim with their bodies floating on top of the water, this isn’t always the case. Sticking with cottonmouths, they do sometimes swim fully submerged when hunting fish or escaping from predators.
Non-venomous snakes are also capable of swimming with their bodies above water. An example of this is the rat snake, which can be seen swimming with its body floating along the top of the water.
That being said, the three most common venomous snakes found in the eastern US, rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, and copperheads, do usually swim along the top of the water. However, this is still a generality and isn’t true 100% of the time. Outside of the US, there are a variety of snakes, both venomous and non-venomous with a wide range of swimming styles making this rule totally unreliable.
