The smell of cucumber may signal that you may have a snake on the premises, or possibly several snakes. Alarmingly, it’s not just any old snake, either. This scent may mean that a venomous snake is lurking.
Some snakes are much like skunks around your home. They don’t typically give off a pungent smell unless they feel threatened in some way. Rattlesnakes exude a scent that smells like cucumbers, which may also be because they are hibernating or dying. Similarly, when copperheads are startled or touched, they too unleash a musky cucumber scent.
“A snake has to have a reason to expel its musk. Thus, a copperhead at rest under a rock or alongside a log will have no reason to give off its musky defense,” Nicholas Martin, a pest control specialist and entomologist, told Best Life. “You could walk within a few inches of the snake and never know it’s there.”