Jo Ellen Frazier, age 13, of Johnson City, Tenn., for her question:

WHERE DOES THE COTTONMOUTH SNAKE LIVE?

The cottonmouth snake is a poisonous snake that lives in the southeastern United States. It is also called the moccasin snake and the water moccasin.

The cottonmouth is a pit viper that lives in the area south of a line running from Cape Charles, Va., to the middle of the Alabama Georgia boundary, then to southern Illinois and from there to the point where the Pecos River and the Rio Grande meet in Texas.

The snake is called a cottonmouth because it is supposed to have a whiter mouth than other snakes, but the difference in appearance is not great.

Like the rattlesnake, this snake has a hollow, or pit on each side of its head, in front of the eye and below it. Several harmless water snakes have a broad head like the cottonmouth, but they all lack the pit.

Cottonmouths or water moccassins are usually about three and a half feet long, although the largest ones may grow to be five feet long. The body usually has broad dark olive bands.

This snake stays in watery places, on the wooded banks of rivers, in large streams and on lake shores. It feeds on frogs, fishes and other small backboned animals. The young are born alive.