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tural on the surface but while it is still natural to a certain extent true the i on swamp is scarred animals which should call the swamp home are forever gone plants which should be easily found throughout the swamp are uncommon and nowhere near as extensive as they used to be the water flows in unnatural channels and canals separated by earthen banks that shouldn t be there the landscape has been forever changed and a sorrow hangs in the air not only because the land will never be as it once was but also because so many lives were unnecessarily lost here despite the scars the i on swamp is nevertheless a fascinating place go visit the swamp if you re in the lowcountry of south carolina walk along the ancient rice field dikes as you travel through the swamp forest look for animals and plants and enjoy the landscape but while you do don t forget to take a few moments to reflect on all the history bound up in this swamp posted by kyle brooks at 1 19 pm 5 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels nature ohio photography parks anthropology birds coastal plain conservation human history national forests ornithology south carolina south carolina history swamps wetlands location i on swamp rd awendaw sc 29429 usa tuesday january 19 2016 the cottonmouth from december 27th 2015 to january 4th 2016 i took a solo road trip to south carolina and the great smoky mountains in north carolina and tennessee i traveled 2060 miles total and saw a great deal of amazing things i m slowly moving through photos but i ve decided to make my first post about one of the most exciting lifers i had over the trip the cottonmouth the cottonmouth also commonly known as the water moccasin is a much maligned snake species there s many myths and just plain misinformation surrounding this interesting species and this post will hopefully bring some truth to the matter on december 29th i traveled from my campsite in francis marion national forest to the nearby hampton plantation state park one of the many state parks in south carolina as you might have guessed from the name hampton plantation sp is an old plantation as with many old plantations in south carolina the hampton plantation specialized in rice rice is grown in shallow ponds and so a series of such ponds were dug out by slaves here at the hampton plantation in the first half of the 1800 s water from the nearby hampton creek was used to flood the ponds and a series of levees throughout the flooded fields were used to control water levels rice is no longer grown at the hampton plantation and these flooded fields have reverted to a swamp along the hampton creek and with that reversion various organisms that live in swamps have returned one of these organisms is the venomous cottonmouth agkistrodon piscivorus pictured above the range of the cottonmouth the cottonmouth is a snake of the southern atlantic coastal plain and the lower mississippi river basin now one of the biggest snake related myths that i hear throughout ohio is that the cottonmouth aka water moccasin can be found in ohio this is completely untrue the cottonmouth can be found nowhere in ohio regardless of what anyone might say the cottonmouth s range just doesn t extend into ohio there has been 1 record of a cottonmouth in ohio but the story isn t what it seems at first glance a cottonmouth was once found on a shipping boat on the ohio river while within the state borders this ship had just come from southern illinois where the cottonmouth can be found and one individual had stowed away on the ship to rest and was unknowingly transported to ohio however since the snake naturally climbed onto the ship the record technically counts the cottonmouth as you might know is a venomous snake this brings me to a slight tangent the snake is venomous not poisonous there is a difference between the two if a creature injects a dangerous substance into you then that creature is venomous if a creature is poisonous however that means that a dangerous substance on or within a creature must be ingested for it to take effect an easier way to put it is if it bites you and you die it is venomous if you bite it and you die it is poisonous for example a cottonmouth is venomous while a monarch is poisonous although highly uncommon it is possible for an organism to be both venomous and poisonous at the same time though for example the asian tiger snake rhabdophis tigrinus is both at the same time it has fangs which can inject a venom but also secretes a poison it obtains from eating certain poisonous toads anyway the cottonmouth is indeed dangerous however they don t pose a threat to a cautious human aware of their surroundings although they are supposed to be highly aggressive which is a myth cottonmouths like all venomous snakes and snakes in general prefer to not attack anything they deem a threat there s a few reasons for this when a snake goes to bite you it risks breaking a fang tooth which can lead to a much harder time obtaining food also by biting any sort of animal a snake opens itself up to being attack and possibly killed out of defense when the ultimate goal of life is passing on your genetics as much as possible dying is obviously something to avoid in addition when it comes to venomous snakes venom is expensive to produce energy wise they use this venom to hunt and therefore they want to conserve venom and therefore energy and use it only when needed needlessly wasting venom when it could just slither away is a silly choice for a snake to make so when would a snake bite then generally speaking a snake will bite when it feels that its life is in immediate danger from you and that the only way to escape this danger is to try and fight the threat off it is important to note that the biting threshold varies not only from species to species but also from individual to individual regardless picking a snake up poking it stepping on it attempting to move it and other such actions usually push the snake past that threshold and a snake will be very apt to bite from then on out when it comes to the cottonmouth one study found that they would essentially only bite if they were picked up with a mechanical hand if you give a snake space and let it have obvious means of escape then it will simply leave you alone this includes cottonmouths cottonmouths also have another line of defense the name cottonmouth stems from their threat display when confronted by a potential threat they open their mouth to reveal a startling white inner covering this white stands out in stark contrast to the browns and greens of the vegetation which you might see them among it s meant to not only catch your attention but to also suggest that it s a dangerous creature and not one to mess with essentially the potential threat in this case me is supposed to think that this snake wouldn t obviously expose itself unless it had a good way to protect itself it s the same principle as the brightly colored monarch a poisonous butterfly i was a few feet away from him taking photos as he did his threat display eventually he realized that i didn t pose an immediate threat and he slowly closed his mouth while still eyeing me closely he then decided to explosively leave the scene and slither into the nearby water the cottonmouth a semi aquatic snake is at home in nearly all types of freshwater habitats throughout much of the southeast they can be found most commonly in heavily vegetated marshes bald cypress swamps and river floodplains the old rice fields where this individual was found for example lie in the south santee river floodplain close to the river itself the cottonmouth isn t completely aquatic however and can sometimes be found far from water in places like fields and other random places they are an adept swimmer and prey mostly on fish and amphibians but will also feed on birds mammals small turtles and even small alligators a harmless northern watersnake not a cottonmouth photo by alayna tokash as i mentioned earlier there are no cottonmouths in ohio and yet every year people swear up and down that they saw one somewhere in ohio so what are they talking about the vast majority of the time what they actually saw was a northern watersnake nerodia sipedon pictured above these harmless snakes are very common in ohio and they are superficially similar to the cottonmouth in both appearance and behavior as their name suggests the northern watersnake is also semi aquatic but when people see a snake in the water they always seem to jump to the cottonmouth there are a few differences between the two species cottonmouths are much more bulky have a triangular head have heat sensing pits near their eyes and have vertical pupils in the shape of slits on the other hand northern watersnakes are slender have a round head that isn t overly distinct from their body have no pits and have round pupils of course telling the difference between the two isn t a problem in ohio as we only have the northern watersnake there are other nerodia sp water snakes down in the range of the cottonmouth but the general differences listed above hold true and as with any animal if you do not know for certain what an animal is give it plenty of space and leave it alone it is safer to wrongly assume something is very dangerous than to assume something very dangerous is harmless the cottonmouth was a very exciting snake to see and i m incredibly happy i ran across one while on my trip although many people hate the cottonmouth they really pose no threat to the person who s aware of their surroundings and who gives these snakes their space that s it for this post thanks for reading posted by kyle brooks at 2 51 pm 3 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels nature ohio photography parks herpetology herping reptiles snakes south carolina swamps venomous snakes location hampton plantation state park 1950 rutledge rd mcclellanville sc 29458 usa sunday july 6 2014 some plants from calamus swamp last thursday i visited calamus swamp in pickaway county i wrote a post giving a general overview of the park and the trails which you can read here but i also promised to go over some of the plants i came across while there as i mentioned in my previous post the main attraction at calamus swamp is a 19 acre kettle lake now mainly filled with aquatic plants as shown above many unique plant species can be found in this also unique ecosystem i m going to focus on more of the showy species you can come across here in late june and early july when it comes to the actual kettle lake one of the most stand out species in the water is the common buttonbush cephalanthus occidentalis common buttonbush is a shrub that is about 4 10 feet tall that can be found in habitats such as wetlands like calamus swamp floodplains mangrove swamps moist understories and on the borders of streams and lakes common buttonbush becomes covered in these spherical flower clusters from june to august before giving way to small spherical fruits that stay on the plant from september to october interestingly common buttonbush is actually a member of the family rubiaceae more commonly known as the coffee family this is one of the dominate species at calamus swamp there s buttonbush basically everywhere you look the photo above shows a common scene while on the boardwalk a wall of common buttonbush fills in the edges of the lake offering many birds a place to nest and many waterbirds protection wood ducks are especially fond of nesting in the dense growth bees are also a very common visitor to the flowers as well as butterflies another common aquatic plant in the kettle lake is bur reed specifically the species sparganium eurycarpum bur reed is a flowering marsh plant that can either be floating in the water or emergent meaning they grow in the water but also go into the air recent phylogenetic analysis has found that the bur reed genus is actually closest related to the cattail genus which isn t surprising to learn when you see the 3 6 feet tall grasses coming out of the water the large pointy spheres are actually the fruit of bur reed they also help identify the species for example the fruit of s eurycarpum shown above are glossy and have an abruptly pointed beak versus the similar s americanum which is dull and has points that taper gently like an ice cream cone next is another aquatic plant and a unique one at that this is the flower of the bladderwort a carnivorous aquatic plant specifically this is the species utricularia gibba more commonly known as the humped or floating bladderwort calamus swamp only has one recorded bladderwort species u gibba u gibba has been recorded in 19 other ohio counties making it one of the more common bladderwort species but still not overly abundant bladderworts grow in nitrogen and phosphorous poor water and have evolved to make up for this deficiency by consuming prey bladderworts have small bladders which actively transport water out of them creating a vacuum inside of the bladder once the vacuum is great enough all it takes is one tiny aquatic animal like a daphnia or mosquito larva to trigger one of the hairs by the door the animal by hitting the trigger hair attached to the bladder door creates a small hole which breaks the vacuum seal and water along the with animal rushes into the bladder the door is shut and the trapped prey is dissolved normally within a few hours these small purple and yellow flowers belong to bittersweet nightshade solanum dulcamara an invasive vine most of the individuals i came across that day were wound around the common buttonbush shrubs this species as i mentioned previously is an invasive it was brought from eurasia as an ornamental and broke free of human control and now can be found in most of the lower 48 states bittersweet nightshade runs a bad rap for being poisonous to humans and livestock the flowers give way to small red berries which to a cow or say curious child look tasty eating only a few can result in vomiting dizziness diarrhea irregular heartbeats and other symptoms eating a good amount of the berries can result in paralysis hallucinations and even death although deaths have only been rarely recorded now let s move on to some of the species that were growing in the prairie section these familiar flowers are black eyed susan rudbeckia hirta there is also a large prairie dock leaf in the upper right corner black eyed susans are a native species belonging to the daisy sunflower family asteraceae they grow in a variety of habitats such as fields open forests roadsides gardens and so on there are a few other species that can be found in ohio that look like black eyed susan all of which have a handful of characteristics which can help differentiate them if you know where to look when it comes to black eyed susans the stems and leaves are covered in hairs that help keep other insects away that might bother flyi...