To a hungry lizard or frog that moving tail tip may look like a green caterpillar. Click to Enlarge This two-day old Osage copperhead, like all newborn copperheads, has a yellow tail. The young snakes use their yellow tail tip, which may look like a caterpillar, to lure their lizard and frog prey. After about 18 months to two years, copperheads are able to capture larger prey and their tails become less colorful. Over 90 percent of an adult copperhead's diet consists of mice, especially deer mice and voles.
Copperheads also eat other rodents, such as house mice and young chipmunks.
During the summer this may take place at twilight, during the night or in early morning. Copperheads may also ambush prey that enters the snake's hiding place, such as under a flat rock or piece of corrugated roof tin lying on the ground. The copperhead's venom glands, venom ducts, fangs and venom evolved to allow them to kill mice and other prey animals. They bite a prey animal, inject venom, then quickly release the prey. The mouse or other prey dies in minutes and all the snake has to do is follow the odor trail and eat the freshly killed rodent.