You may have seen it floating around on Facebook this week: a photo of a massive copperhead snake supposedly found in Canton, Ga.
The snake appears so large that some questioned if it was real.
11Alive reached out to verify the story.
We reached Chase Curtis, the owner of the tree company, C&C Tree Service. He confirmed that they did find the snake outside of the back door of their office, which is also their home, along with another snake last week.
PHOTO | Massive Copperhead snake caught in Georgia
One of the snakes managed to slither back under the wood pile. The other was caught and killed.
That copperhead was more than 40 inches long and pregnant with 15 snakes, according to Ryley Sandlin of C&C Tree Service.
According to experts, copperheads are venomous and one that size could kill a small child or animal.
11Alive can VERIFY the massive copperhead was found in Canton, Ga.
Note: According to the Georgia Wildfire Resources Division, copperheads usually grow to between 2 and 3 feet long. So if the snake was 40 inches, that would make it larger than average but far short of the record. According to the University of Georgia, the longest ever Southern Copperhead was 52 inches, and the longest ever Northern Copperhead was inches. The snake in the picture could appear larger than it actually was because of the perspective (think of it like this: the snake is in the foreground, closer to the camera, giving it the illusion of being longer than its actual size).
Photo guide to the six venomous snakes of Georgia
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