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There are 4 species of snakes referred to as "copperheads" but since the question was about having rattles, we may assume the person posing the question was referring to the Agkistrodon contortrix which shares its range with several types of rattlesnakes.

Although both copperheads and rattlesnakes are in the Family Viperidae and the Sub-family Crotilinae, the copperhead is from the genus Agkistrodon whereas rattlesnakes are all from the genus Croatalus. Only rattlesnakes (Croatalus) have rattles (or rattlers for that matter).

By the way, with respect to the other 3 "copperheads":

The Australian Copperhead isn't even the same family (Elapidae)

The Chinese Copperhead is the same sub-family, but is from the genus Deinagkistrodon.

The Elaphe radiata, or copperhead rat snake is a non-venomous species found in southern Asia which is from a different family too (Colubridae).

... and as already stated - since they are not rattlesnakes, they don't have rattles either.

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9y ago

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