{"id":2642,"date":"2026-03-10T06:53:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T13:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/?p=2642"},"modified":"2026-03-10T06:53:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T13:53:34","slug":"california-kingsnake-in-northern-arizona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/snakes\/california-kingsnake-in-northern-arizona\/","title":{"rendered":"California Kingsnake in Northern Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/category\/snakes\/colubridae\/lampropeltis\/californiae\/\" data-type=\"category\" data-id=\"427\">California Kingsnake<\/a> from an interesting pocket of Sonoran Desert influence near the Arizona\/Utah border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;kingsnakes keep rattlers away!!!&#8221; &#8211; a common, and incorrect, myth of the desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kingsnakes do eat rattlesnakes, but that&#8217;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)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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 &#8230; with no apparent effect to the local rattlesnake population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yes, kingsnakes do eat rattlesnakes. But no, it&#8217;s not all they eat, and moving kingsnakes around randomly will not provide the protection most people believe it will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wiseman, K. D., Greene, H. W., Koo, M. S., &amp; 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\u201330.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"850\" src=\"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lampropeltis-californiae_0780-Edit-1200x850.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2643\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lampropeltis-californiae_0780-Edit-1200x850.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lampropeltis-californiae_0780-Edit-752x533.jpg 752w, https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lampropeltis-californiae_0780-Edit-768x544.jpg 768w, https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lampropeltis-californiae_0780-Edit-1536x1089.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lampropeltis-californiae_0780-Edit-2048x1451.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A California Kingsnake from an interesting pocket of Sonoran Desert influence near the Arizona\/Utah border. &#8220;kingsnakes keep rattlers away!!!&#8221; &#8211; a common, and incorrect, myth of the desert. Kingsnakes do eat rattlesnakes, but that&#8217;s far from all that they eat. In a dietary study examining the stomach contents of 2,662 kingsnakes, rattlesnakes made up just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[427,141,169,135],"tags":[36,721],"class_list":["post-2642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-californiae","category-colubridae","category-lampropeltis","category-snakes","tag-rattlesnakes","tag-diet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2644,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions\/2644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}