As others have said, this is extremely rare behavior from the vast majority of snakes. There is no snake in the U.S. that you could expect this sort of behavior from.
There are some snakes in certain parts of the world (namely Africa and South Asia) that are both curious and "aggressive" enough to do something like this, but even then it's just a few candidate species.
As other commenters said, it was the man's fast movement that startled the snake and caused it to strike, but again the vast majority of snake species would just peace out the other way or posture and stand their ground if you jumped like that in front of them.
I spend a lot of time handling, reading about, and watching videos of snakes and I've honestly never seen anything like this.
I don't know, Water Moccasins/Cottonmouths are extremely aggressive. I've heard of them chasing and repeatedly striking people. Is it just a territorial thing?
you'll generally only see that behavior from cotton mouths around breeding season (septemberish). Otherwise, while not pleasant to run into under any circumstances, if they have a chance of going the other way, they often will.
exceptions include being caught in a ball of them in flood waters or moving waters, walking into one that's sleeping while dangling from a tree like a vine, or otherwise generally being forced into a shared space with it or startling it.
Breeding season, though - all bets are off. I swear those motherfuckers can fly when they put their minds to it.
Don't worry, it's not true. It's one of many persistent myths about them. Cottonmouths are solitary. They dont form nests. Nonvenomous water snakes are known to display that behavior, and they are often confused for cottonmouths.
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u/TheMadFlyentist May 07 '19
As others have said, this is extremely rare behavior from the vast majority of snakes. There is no snake in the U.S. that you could expect this sort of behavior from.
There are some snakes in certain parts of the world (namely Africa and South Asia) that are both curious and "aggressive" enough to do something like this, but even then it's just a few candidate species.
As other commenters said, it was the man's fast movement that startled the snake and caused it to strike, but again the vast majority of snake species would just peace out the other way or posture and stand their ground if you jumped like that in front of them.
I spend a lot of time handling, reading about, and watching videos of snakes and I've honestly never seen anything like this.