Nerri Denagall Brown was visiting the Walmart in Pineville, Louisiana this week when she found an unexpected item in her shopping cart. Right where she normally stows her kids in the cart, there was a venomous snake. Brown infers in her Facebook post that she didn’t even see the snake at first; another customer pointed it out to her. Brown said she’s grateful she took her kids to daycare instead of to the store with her.
The snake appears to be a juvenile cottonmouth snake, based on its coloring and bright yellow tail tip, which typically fades to black with age. The northern cottonmouth or water moccasin is a venomous snake found throughout the southeastern United States, including Louisiana.
These snakes can be up to 6 feet long and their bites can be deadly, though fatalities are rare. Nevertheless, a venomous snake is definitely not what Brown wanted in her Walmart shopping cart, and it gave her quite a fright.
Watch a woman discover a venomous snake in her Walmart shopping cart here:
Commenters debate whether the snake truly is a cottonmouth. Some say it might actually be a copperhead, another venomous snake that lives in the area. Juvenile copperheads also have a yellow tail tip.