California Lyre Snake (Trimorphodon lyrophanes)
Description: Trimorphodon have been recorded from 18 - 47 3/4 inches in length. Most snakes encountered are 24 - 36 inches. Hatchlings are approximately 6 inches in length. A slender snake with a broad head well-differentiated from the slim neck. The pupils are vertical, like those of a cat.
The anal plate is divided or entire. Coloring closely matches a snake's rocky habitat, from gray to light brown. There are usually about 35 dorsal blotches with light edges and a pale crossbar in the center, and smaller irregular blotches on the lower sides. A lyre-shaped marking is present on top of the head. The underside is off-white or yellowish with dark spots. There is a dark form of this snake with a light brown middorsal stripe found at the Pisgah lava flow.
Habitat: Associated primarily with rocky locations in desert scrub and grassland, chaparral, oak woodland, coniferous forest, but found in rockless areas.
Range: In California, this species is found from Santa Barbara County south along the coast and the peninsular ranges into Baja California, and to the east north of the Imperial Valley to near the Colorado River where it meets Trimorphodon lambda, and around the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains north into Inyo County around Death Valley. It is not known from a large area of the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino except for a few reported isolated localities listed below. The small number of records for the species in this area may be due to the secretive nature of this snake. It may be more widespread.
Found in these States:
CA
Diet: Primarily lizards, but also known to eat small mammals, nestling birds, and snakes.
Reproduction: Not well known. Breeding probably takes place in Spring. Females are oviparous, laying a clutch of 10 or more eggs in Summer which hatch in late Summer and early Fall.
Status: Listed as Least Concern in view of the wide distribution, presumed large population, lack of major threats in most areas, and because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category.
»» Kingdom: Animalia - Animals
»» Phylum: Chordata - Chordates
»» Subphylum: Vertebrata - Vertebrates
»» Class: Reptilia - Reptiles
»» Order: Squamata - Scaled Reptiles
»» Suborder: Serpentes
»» Superfamily: Colubroidea
»» Family: Colubridae - Colubrids
»» Genus: Trimorphodon
»» Species: Trimorphodon lyrophanes - California Lyre Snake
»» Subspecies: None
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Trimorphodon", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0. Content may have been omitted from the original, but no content has been changed or extended.
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