Pennsylvania has two venomous snake species that hikers can actually encounter on the trail — and with summer hiking season underway, The News Journal flagged both in a report published Thursday, May 29.
The timber rattlesnake and the eastern copperhead are the state’s only venomous snakes. Both are native to Pennsylvania, both are pit vipers, and neither is especially rare in wooded or rocky terrain. The timber rattlesnake tends toward remote, forested ridges; the copperhead shows up closer to suburban edges, which is where a lot of casual hikers walk.
Neither snake is aggressive by default. Most bites happen when someone steps on one or reaches near a rock where one is resting — situations that are avoidable if you’re paying attention. That’s cold comfort if you’re actually bitten, though, and a rattlesnake bite in particular requires emergency treatment.
What to watch for: both snakes are heavy-bodied with triangular heads. The timber rattlesnake has a rattle — hard to miss if it uses it, though they don’t always. The copperhead has a distinctive hourglass pattern in copper and brown tones across its back. Neither looks much like the nonvenomous water snakes and milk snakes that share the same habitat, but the resemblance is close enough that misidentification happens.
The News Journal didn’t specify which trails or counties prompted the advisory. Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources lists both species as present across much of the state, with populations concentrated in the Ridge and Valley region and parts of the Pocono Plateau. The report didn’t include data on how many bites are reported in Pennsylvania annually.
Reported by The News Journal. Read the original report.
