I was walking along a path in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge when I heard lots of rustling behind where I had just come from. I turned back and saw a black snake flopping around on the ground and then all of a sudden it stopped. I raced back with my camera and started taking pictures. It wasn’t until I got close enough that I realized this black racer had ambushed a juvenile copperhead (venomous) and was in the process of eating it! The only way this snake would be able to eat the venomous copperhead without dying is if it managed to get the head into it’s mouth before the snake could bite it, and then suffocate it to death which must have been what the initial rustling was. The next few photos are of the racer consuming the copperhead, an event that to my knowledge has never been documented or photographed before!
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Owen Slater Photography 
man that is really cool and amazing i have never heard of a black racer eating a venomous snake, that is really rare footage, nice job
Thanks Josh…I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
I took photos today of a black snake eating a copperhead in our driveway in north GA.
Awesome photos Kathy! The black snake you photographed is an Eastern King snake.
very nice picture. do you have more than one photo?
is there someway to view the photos from Kathy?
someone sent me an email of a black snake eating a rattle snake.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.crainium.net/jdjArchives/BlackSnake1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.crainium.net/jdjArchives/2009/04/why_you_never_kill_a_black_sna.html&usg=__Ii5SdKUjfrS3g0L9OJ3D6bPNhAE=&h=338&w=450&sz=46&hl=en&start=10&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=amGgkC-cbICI7M:&tbnh=95&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dblack%2Bsnake%2Bvs%2Brattlesnake%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1
Great photo! That behavior is indeed not something seen very often, even by King snakes. Thank you for sharing the experience. It makes one wonder if like King Snakes, the Racers are somewhat immune to venom, or if the Copperhead was already dead and, being an opportunist, the Racer simply consumed it. Great work!
Jamison
Hi Jamison,
Not sure if the black racer is immune to the venom or just a very skilled predator of venomous snakes. I can tell you that the copperhead was not dead before hand as just before I took this picture their was a big struggle between the two of them and they were both flopping around in the pine needles!
Pretty sure that’s an Eastern Indigo snake, and not a black racer. They overlap in habitat, and are often mistaken for one another, but the eyes of the Indigo have the ridge above them seen in the snake pictured above.
Eastern Indigos DO eat venomous snakes (rattlers, cottonmouths, and copperheads, but racers do not. Another speacies, the black rat snake, is also mistaken for the Indigo, and that is why farmers say that black rat snakes keep copperheads away, as well. In fact, it is only the Indigo that eats their venomous cousins.
Hi Darin,
Thanks for checking the photos out and commenting on them!
While I agree that the two snakes can be mistaken, I am still confident that this is a black racer as Indigo snakes have much stockier bodies, somewhat flattened heads and orange to white speckling on their chins. Black racers are much more slender and their chins are completely white. I believe the ridge that is apparent in the first photo is a product of the angle that the photograph was taken. If you look at the other two photos, I think you will be hard pressed to see the ridge. These other two photos also show how slender the snake is and the white chin. I have had these images reviewed by several herpatologists and they also agree that it is a black racer.
Cheers,
Owen
Definitely a Black Racer.