Reptiles

Hognose Snake

Heterodon · also called hognose, puff adder

Not Evaluated carnivore Temperate grassland Desert Temperate forest

The hognose snake is North America’s greatest actor. Threatened, it first does an impression of a cobra, flattening its neck, rearing up, and hissing like a punctured tyre, striking with its mouth shut. If that does not work, it throws itself onto its back, gapes, lolls its tongue, fouls itself, and plays dead so thoroughly that the only way to tell it is faking is that it will not stay right-side up.

Overview

Hognose snakes are the genus Heterodon, three to five species, across North America. They are stout, mildly rear-venomed colubrids of sandy, diggable soils, and they are toad specialists, rooting buried toads out of the ground with an upturned snout built like a trowel. They are resistant to the bufotoxins that toads use to poison other predators.

The two-act bluff

Alarmed, a hognose first hoods and hisses — flattening its neck cobra-style, rearing, and making closed-mouth strikes that miss on purpose, which earned it the folk names “blowing viper” and “puff adder”. If that fails, it switches to playing dead, writhing, going limp belly-up with its tongue out, and smearing itself with musk. Its one tell is that it insists on lying upside down.

Barely venomous

The venom is mild, made at the back of the mouth, and worked in by chewing. On a person it can cause local swelling and blistering but nothing dangerous — there is no antivenom because none is needed.

Status

Hognose snakes as a genus are Not Evaluated. The western and eastern hognose are widespread but heavily killed on roads and by people who mistake the bluff for a real threat, and the southern hognose snake has declined sharply across the southeastern coastal plain.

Hognose Snake: common questions

Is a hognose snake venomous?

Technically slightly, but not in a way that matters to people. Hognose snakes have a mild venom produced at the back of the mouth and worked into prey by chewing with enlarged rear teeth, which helps them subdue toads. A person who is bitten and chewed on, which is uncommon since hognose snakes rarely bite in defence, may get local swelling, redness, blistering, and bruising that resolves over a few days, similar to a strong allergic reaction, and there is no antivenom because none is needed. Hognose snakes are not front-fanged, do not deliver a fast injecting bite, and are not considered dangerous. The bigger risk from a hognose is that its dramatic display gets it killed by frightened people.

Why does a hognose snake play dead?

It is a last-resort defence called thanatosis, or death-feigning, used when the hooding-and-hissing bluff has not worked. Many predators lose interest in prey that is clearly already dead, either because a fresh kill is preferred or because a limp, foul-smelling carcass seems less worth the effort, so a snake that convincingly mimics a days-old corpse may be left alone. The hognose commits fully, rolling belly-up, gaping, letting the tongue hang out, releasing musk and cloacal contents, and sometimes even emitting a little blood from the mouth. The act has one flaw, which is that the snake insists on lying belly-up, so if you turn it over it immediately rolls back, revealing that it is very much alive.

What is the difference between a hognose snake and a real puff adder?

They are completely unrelated, and the shared name is a source of confusion. The African puff adder is a large, thick-bodied, highly venomous viper responsible for many serious snakebites across sub-Saharan Africa. The North American hognose snake is a small, harmless colubrid that earned the name blowing viper or puff adder from its habit of flattening its neck and hissing when alarmed, a bluff rather than a warning of real danger. So calling a hognose a puff adder is a folk name based on behaviour, and the two animals live on different continents and pose very different levels of risk.

Are hognose snakes good pets?

The western hognose is one of the more popular pet snakes, and for good reason. It stays small, usually under 60 to 90 centimetres, is calm and rarely bites once acclimatised, has modest housing and heating needs, and comes in a wide variety of attractive captive-bred colour morphs. The main considerations are that it is a toad and amphibian specialist by nature, so captives are usually switched onto rodents with some effort, that its mild rear-fanged venom means a chewing bite can cause a reaction in sensitive people, and that the theatrical bluffing and death-feigning behaviour, while famous, is mostly seen in wild-caught animals and rarely in relaxed captive-bred ones.

Sources & further reading

Written by HideShark Editorial Team · reviewed by HideShark Science Desk. Published September 10, 2026. Last updated September 10, 2026.

Quick facts

Scientific name: Heterodon
Diet: Toads above all, dug out of the soil and swallowed despite the toad's habit of puffing up, along with frogs, salamanders, lizards, small snakes, reptile eggs, and the occasional small mammal or ground-nesting bird, hunted by scent and by digging
A snout built for digging: A hognose snake has a hardened, sharply upturned scale on the tip of its snout, which it uses like a small trowel to root through loose soil and leaf litter after buried toads, and to dig its own burrows, so the name refers to a pig-like rooting habit rather than the shape alone
The bluff, part one: A threatened hognose flattens its neck into a cobra-like hood, raises the front of its body, hisses loudly, and makes short closed-mouth strikes that almost never connect, an act convincing enough that the eastern hognose is sometimes called the blowing viper or hissing adder
The bluff, part two: If the hooding display fails, a hognose rolls onto its back, writhes as if in agony, opens its mouth, lets its tongue loll, sometimes smears itself with musk and faeces, and goes limp, playing dead so committed that a snake turned right-side up will flip straight back over, giving the game away
Mild venom, in the back of the mouth: Hognose snakes produce a mild venom in an enlarged gland at the rear of the upper jaw, delivered by chewing with slightly enlarged rear teeth, which helps subdue toads and, in a person, can cause local swelling, blistering, and bruising but is not considered medically dangerous
Resistant to toad toxin: The toads that make up most of a hognose's diet secrete bufotoxins from glands behind the eyes that sicken or kill most predators, and the hognose has evolved both a physiological resistance to these poisons and enlarged adrenal glands thought to help it cope with the load
A favourite in the pet trade: The western hognose in particular is widely kept, being small, hardy, and calm once used to handling, and it is bred in a large range of colour and pattern morphs, with the bluffing and death-feigning behaviour rarely shown by captive-bred animals
Range: North America, from southern Canada through the central and eastern United States into northern Mexico, in sandy prairie, open woodland, scrub, farmland edges, river floodplains, and coastal dunes, always in loose, well-drained soils that the snake can dig into and that support the toads it feeds on.
Conservation status: Not Evaluated ≈ Not assessed as a genus of three to five species, and the western and eastern hognose snakes remain widespread across the central and eastern United States, though locally reduced by habitat loss and heavily killed on roads and by people who mistake the bluffing display for a genuine venomous threat, while the southern hognose snake has declined sharply across the southeastern coastal plain and is a species of conservation concern in the wild