There has been much discussion about many of the species of snakes that occur in the pine barrens, Now, how about some speculation on WHY NO COPPERHEADS ???
Here's a pit viper that has a range from Massachusets to southern Illinois and most of Missouri, down to west-central Texas and every bit of land south and east of those limits ...EXCEPT for southern NJ. As a young amateur herpetologist who spent a lot of time herping in the pines I simply assumed they weren't there because they just didn't like that sort of habitat. Now I'm not going to dispute that assumption, but I have subsequently found copperheads in habitats ostensibly identical to or at least very much like that of the pine barrens (sandy to sandy loam substrate and a mixed pine, oak, cedar forest with cedar / cypress swamps) all along the south-east coastal plain "pine barrens - like pine-oak forests from Virginia to Florida as well as in similar habitats in much of east Texas. Indeed, the acreage I bought in Texas was like a bit of the NJPB's, and copperheads were common - without particularly looking for them we'd find 5 to 10 a year with in 50 feet of the house. My woodpile of split cedar, pine, and pecan was a favored incidental hibernation site for one or two of them each winter (or at least such a "winter" as occurs in that climatically deprived sorry place...) And when we'd be out hiking it would be the PB-like habitats where we'd most often encounter copperheads.
So, I'm wondering what I'm missing that makes the New Jersey Pine Barrens such a distinctly and discretely UNSUITABLE environment for the otherwise amazingly adaptable copperhead. I've given the topic more than a little thought and cannot come up with any good reason why they should not be there. Neither from the point of view of any unique predators or of absence of requisite food items do the NJPB's seem unsuitable for Copperheads. But some factor or factors are clearly operant to discretely and effectively exclude that species from the NJPB's.
One possibility has occurred to me, but really seems quite a bit of a stretch. The NJPB's do have a slightly greater variety of avidly ophiophagic snakes - king snakes (Lampropeltis getulus), several subspp. of milk snakes (L. triangulum subspp.), and the black racer (Coluber constrictor) - than do the immediately adjacent regions of north Jersey, Pennsylvania, or nearby Delaware - but in the pine barrens further south these and more snake-eating snakes coexist with heartily viable copperhead populations.
I ask this not so much out of saddness at the absence of copperheads, but to try to discover and understand yet one more clearly unique feature of an already unique and fascinating biome - the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
Maybe something to be found in the geolgic features and history of southern NJ?
Any ideas or suggestions ?
Dave
Here's a pit viper that has a range from Massachusets to southern Illinois and most of Missouri, down to west-central Texas and every bit of land south and east of those limits ...EXCEPT for southern NJ. As a young amateur herpetologist who spent a lot of time herping in the pines I simply assumed they weren't there because they just didn't like that sort of habitat. Now I'm not going to dispute that assumption, but I have subsequently found copperheads in habitats ostensibly identical to or at least very much like that of the pine barrens (sandy to sandy loam substrate and a mixed pine, oak, cedar forest with cedar / cypress swamps) all along the south-east coastal plain "pine barrens - like pine-oak forests from Virginia to Florida as well as in similar habitats in much of east Texas. Indeed, the acreage I bought in Texas was like a bit of the NJPB's, and copperheads were common - without particularly looking for them we'd find 5 to 10 a year with in 50 feet of the house. My woodpile of split cedar, pine, and pecan was a favored incidental hibernation site for one or two of them each winter (or at least such a "winter" as occurs in that climatically deprived sorry place...) And when we'd be out hiking it would be the PB-like habitats where we'd most often encounter copperheads.
So, I'm wondering what I'm missing that makes the New Jersey Pine Barrens such a distinctly and discretely UNSUITABLE environment for the otherwise amazingly adaptable copperhead. I've given the topic more than a little thought and cannot come up with any good reason why they should not be there. Neither from the point of view of any unique predators or of absence of requisite food items do the NJPB's seem unsuitable for Copperheads. But some factor or factors are clearly operant to discretely and effectively exclude that species from the NJPB's.
One possibility has occurred to me, but really seems quite a bit of a stretch. The NJPB's do have a slightly greater variety of avidly ophiophagic snakes - king snakes (Lampropeltis getulus), several subspp. of milk snakes (L. triangulum subspp.), and the black racer (Coluber constrictor) - than do the immediately adjacent regions of north Jersey, Pennsylvania, or nearby Delaware - but in the pine barrens further south these and more snake-eating snakes coexist with heartily viable copperhead populations.
I ask this not so much out of saddness at the absence of copperheads, but to try to discover and understand yet one more clearly unique feature of an already unique and fascinating biome - the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
Maybe something to be found in the geolgic features and history of southern NJ?
Any ideas or suggestions ?
Dave
