Description: Adults are generally 30 - 48 inches long occasionally reaching 60 inches. Hatchlings are about 13 inches long. A long fast-moving snake with a thin body and a long thin tail, large eyes, a broad elongated head, a slender neck, and smooth scales. Dark olive brown, gray, or black ground coloring with a pale yellow or cream colored solid stripe on each side which extends from the back of the eye to or beyond the vent. The stripes are relatively narrow - "2 half-scale rows wide." The underside is cream or pale yellow tapering to pink toward the tail.

Habitat: Open areas in canyons, rocky hillsides, brushy chaparral, scrub, open woodlands, pond edges, stream courses, desert riparian corridors.

Range: This subspecies, California Striped Racer, occurs from near Dunsmuir in Siskiyou County east to the crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, south along the Sierra foothills to southern California and south along the coast to near sea level, to northern Baja California. Occurs in Southern California to the edge of the deserts and in desert riparian corridors. Absent from the far north coast, the great valley, most of the deserts, and high elevations (over approx 7,400 ft).

Found in these States: CA

Diet: Eats lizards (particularly spiny lizards), small rodents, small birds, frogs, salamanders, small snakes. Juveniles will consume large insects.

Reproduction: Females are oviparous, laying eggs in late spring or early summer which hatch in two to three months.

Status: Listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution, presumed large population, and because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category.

Taxonomy: