A Sonoran Lyresnake we found late at night as it was leaving a rocky hillside, heading out towards open flat desert.
Sonoran Lyresnake in Arizona
Category: Colubridae
Banded Calico Snake
One of the colorful Banded Calico Snakes found near camp in Peru a few years back.
Black-necked Gartersnake in Greenlee County, Arizona
A Black-necked Gartersnake we found while hiking a high-elevation stream in Greenlee County, Arizona. This one had lost its pattern entirely, becoming solid grey animal with stripes and its characteristic black patches behind the head.
Regal Ringnecked Snake
A Regal Ringnecked Snake we found in central Arizona many years ago. These are venomous, but harmless, eating a wide variety of prey from invertebrates to other snakes. The red color under the tail, which is shown here in defensive display, is just a hint at the bright colors that run the length of the belly.
Blunt-headed Tree Snake from Guatemala
A Blunt-headed Tree Snake from Guatemala a few years back. These are extremely thin snakes that can be very difficult to photograph, as they just never stop moving. This one took awhile, but eventually let me get this subpar shot.
Greater Green Snake
A Greater Green Snake (Ptyas major) we saw in Hong Kong several years ago.
Banded Sandsnake
A Banded Sandsnake from my own backyard. These are tiny, even as adults. This one is a bit shorter than a pencil, and likely won’t get any bigger. They eat invertebrates, don’t bite, and are completely harmless to people and pets. They’re also very often mistaken for Western Groundsnakes, which look superficially similar.
Longnosed Snake in the Daytime
A Longnosed Snake cruising around in the low light at the end of the day. These snakes are most often nocturnal, but may be found in the early morning or late afternoon, especially in the Spring. Against the chaotic, rocky backdrop of desert pavement between sandy plains, its shape breaks up, and spotting it can be difficult.
These snakes are commonly found in backyards, even a decent distance into the city, where they are usually misidentified as kingsnakes.
Longnosed Snake with Bright Red Bands
A close of of a Longnosed Snake’s namesake. These snakes are commonly mistaken as kingsnakes, even by (especially by!) the born and raised locals. There is a superficial resemblance, especially when they are in the purely black and white form. However, these red eyes, pointed snout, and red/orange bands are their own thing entirely. Longnosed Snakes are, compared to many other snake species, able to tolerate urbanization to a large degree. As a result, they can be found in backyards relatively far from the nearest native desert, often being reported by homeowners as the “first snake we’ve ever seen here”. They are harmless, of course, even being reluctant to bite at all.
California Kingsnake in Northern Arizona
A California Kingsnake from an interesting pocket of Sonoran Desert influence near the Arizona/Utah border.
“kingsnakes keep rattlers away!!!” – a common, and incorrect, myth of the desert.
Kingsnakes do eat rattlesnakes, but that’s far from all that they eat. In a dietary study examining the stomach contents of 2,662 kingsnakes, rattlesnakes made up just 7% of prey items. While rattlesnakes are an ideal prey item for these animals, they are far from their only, or even primary, target. (Wiseman et al 2019)
In reality, the presence of a kingsnake does not indicate that there are fewer rattlesnakes in an area. If anything, a lot of kingsnakes may be an indicator of abundant prey! The places we often find kingsnakes regularly are also places with a large amount of rattlesnakes.
Why does this matter? Kingsnakes are routinely collected or purchased by homeowners to release on their property with the belief that it is going to control the rattlesnakes that may be there. But, the likely result is going to be a dead kingsnake … with no apparent effect to the local rattlesnake population.
So yes, kingsnakes do eat rattlesnakes. But no, it’s not all they eat, and moving kingsnakes around randomly will not provide the protection most people believe it will.
Wiseman, K. D., Greene, H. W., Koo, M. S., & Long, D. J. (2019). Feeding ecology of a generalist predator, the California Kingsnake (Lampropeltis californiae): Why rare prey matter. Herpetological Conservation and Biology, 14(1), 1–30.
