Cottonmouth

Weight

1.7 kg

Length

up to 1.89 m

Lifespan

20 years

Diet

Carnivore

Longest recorded lifespan

24.6 years

Main food

Not recorded

Habitat

forest

Young per litter or clutch

5.5 – 20

Age at maturity

2 years – 3 years

Litters or clutches a year

0.5 – 0.75

Reproduction

Live birth

Active

Day and night (cathemeral)

Lifestyle

Aquatic

Conservation status

Not recorded

Countries on record

Not recorded

Not recorded

No conservation assessment is recorded for this species in our sources. That is not the same as being safe: it has not been matched to an assessment.

1. kingdomAnimalia
2. phylumChordata
3. classReptilia
4. orderSquamata
5. familyViperidae
6. genusAgkistrodon
7. SpeciesAgkistrodon piscivorus (Lacépède, 1789)

Synonyms Acontias leucostoma, Agkistrodon piscivorus leucostoma, Crotalus piscivorus

Catalogue of Life

LC, Least Concern

Eastern copperhead

Agkistrodon contortrix

Viperidae

C

Cantil

Agkistrodon bilineatus

ViperidaeNo free photo yet

T

Taylor's Cantil

Agkistrodon taylori

ViperidaeNo free photo yet

C

Cantil

Agkistrodon russeolus

ViperidaeNo free photo yet

G

Gloyd's Cantil

Agkistrodon howardgloydi

ViperidaeNo free photo yet

B

Broad-banded copperhead

Agkistrodon laticinctus

ViperidaeNo free photo yet

CompareCottonmouth vs Eastern copperheadCottonmouth vs CantilCottonmouth vs Taylor's CantilCottonmouth vs Cantil

• An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles · CC0 1.0 · E096-269
  Myhrvold, N.P., Baldridge, E., Chan, B., Sivam, D., Freeman, D.L. & Ernest, S.K.M. (2015) An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96: 3109. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0846R.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3563457.v1
• AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits · CC BY 4.0 · v1
  Oliveira, B.F., São-Pedro, V.A., Santos-Barrera, G., Penone, C. & Costa, G.C. (2017) AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits. Scientific Data 4: 170123. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.123. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4644424.v5
• AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds · CC BY 4.0 · v7
  Tobias, J.A. et al. (2022) AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds. Ecology Letters 25: 581–597. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13898. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16586228.v7
• Catalogue of Life eXtended Release · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-10-16 XR
  Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf
• Wikimedia Commons · per file (CC0 / public domain / CC BY green, CC BY-SA amber, anything else not displayed) · 2026-11-11
  Wikimedia Commons contributors. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org (each file credited to its author under its own licence).
• EltonTraits 1.0: species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals · CC0 1.0 · 1.0
  Wilman, H., Belmaker, J., Simpson, J., de la Rosa, C., Rivadeneira, M.M. & Jetz, W. (2014) EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95: 2027. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-1917.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3559887.v1
• LepTraits 1.0: a globally comprehensive dataset of butterfly traits · CC0 1.0 · 1.0
  Shirey, V., Larsen, E., Doherty, A. et al. (2022) LepTraits 1.0: a globally comprehensive dataset of butterfly traits. Scientific Data 9: 382. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01473-5. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19874602.v1
• Northwestern European arthropod life histories and ecological traits (raw datasets) · CC BY 4.0 · 2024-12-17
  Logghe, G., Batsleer, F., Maes, D. et al. (2025) An in-depth dataset of northwestern European arthropod life histories and ecological traits. Biodiversity Data Journal 13: e146785. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.13.e146785. Data: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13379714
• ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles · CC BY 4.0 · v1-2
  Oskyrko, O., Mi, C., Meiri, S. et al. (2024) ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data 11: 243. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03079-5. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24572683.v4
• Sharkipedia: a curated open access database of shark and ray life history traits · CC BY 4.0 · 1.0-2022-06-17
  Mull, C.G., Pacoureau, N., Pardo, S.A. et al. (2022) Sharkipedia: a curated open access database of shark and ray life history traits and abundance time-series. Scientific Data 9: 559. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01655-1. Data: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6656525
• SquamBase 1.0 - a dataset of squamate species traits · CC0 1.0 · 1.0-dryad-v5
  Meiri, S. (2024) SquamBase - a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography 33(4): e13812. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13812. Data: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.76hdr7t3b
• TraitCH: a multi-taxa functional trait dataset for Switzerland and Europe · CC BY 4.0 · 2.0
  Chauvier, Y., Adde, A., Bergamini, A. et al. (2025) TraitCH: a multi-taxa functional trait dataset for Switzerland and Europe. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15063844
• Wikidata · CC0 1.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikidata contributors. Wikidata. https://www.wikidata.org (data retrieved via the Wikidata Query Service).
• Wikipedia (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org (text under CC BY-SA 4.0; each block names its article and revision).

@misc{cottonmouth_2026,
  title = {Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus)},
  author = {{CreatureData}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/cottonmouth},
  note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}