Its dorsal scale rows are weakly keeled. This snake is found in a variety of habitats such as houses, barns, fields, brushlands, woodlands, and streams where it feeds on a variety of rodents and other warm-blooded prey, including birds and their eggs. Females lay up to 25 elliptical, chalky-white eggs in loose soil. The distinctive features of this species is an upturned snout that is used in rooting for toads, its preferred food. This may be a spotted snake with squarish blotches of bluish black on a tan background.
Some specimens are completely black.
All of these snakes have keeled scales. It attains lengths of more than 40 inches and occurs throughout the state in woodlands, along the sandy edges of rivers and streams, and in cultivated fields. Females lay approximately 20 oval, white eggs in loose sandy soil. This is one of the 2 venomous snake species in West Virginia. The color is rich, reddish brown with a series of darker hourglass markings down its back.