A man driving along Old Highway 64 in Tennessee’s Hardeman County hit a copperhead snake that nearly broke a world record. While the reptile was dead after Bub Stevens hit it with his pickup truck, the venomous snake measured in at 49.5 inches, or 4 feet and 1.5 inches, 3.5 inches shy of the longest Northern Copperhead ever recorded.

“It darted out straight out in front of me, and I hit it," Stevens said. “I thought, ‘That looked like a snake.’ So, I backed up and got out, and sure enough it was a big copperhead. By that time it was dead. So, I just got some gloves I had in my truck and picked it up and threw it in the back of my truck. I thought, ‘Man, that's the biggest snake I've ever seen.’”

According to the University of Georgia Extension, adult Northern Copperhead’s range on average from 26-34 inches in length. The largest specimen ever recorded measured in at 4-foot-5 inches, or 53 inches.

Fox 13 reports that Stevens quickly phoned his friend, local outdoorsman Anthony Landreth, to examine the snake. Landreth was suitably impressed by the finding and donated it to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

“When I looked over in back of his truck, and I saw that snake, I knew it was something special about it,” Landreth said. “Because I've seen lots of copperheads and lots of cottonmouths; never seen a copperhead like that. Never.”

The agency, which was just as amazed by the snake as Stevens and Landreth, plan to have it stuffed by a taxidermist and put on display for educational purposes.

Though its skin was somewhat damaged by the impact that killed it, it is believed that the snake can be preserved for future reference.

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