Description: A large chocolate borwn to black kingsnake with a highly variable back and underside pattern. Light centered scales may form distinct crossbands, "chainlinks", lengthwise stripes, blotches, or speckles on the back. The underside ranges from plain white to heavily blotches with dark pigment to plain black. The scales are smooth in 19 to 25 rows with the anal plate being single.
Habitat: Diverse: New Jersey Pine Barrens to the Florida Everglades; dry rocky wooded hillsides to river swamps and coastal marshes, and prairie, desert, and chaparral. Found from sea level to 6,900 feet.
Breeding: mates in mid March (in Florida) to June. Clutches of 3 to 24 creamy white to yellowish elongated eggs, 1¼" to 2¾" long, are laid mid May (in Florida) to August. Incubation lasts 8½ to 11½ weeks, depending on temperature. The hatchlings are 9" to 12" long.
Range: Southern New Jersey to southern Florida, west to suothwestern Oregon and southern California, south to southern Baja California and Zacatecas, Mexico.
Diet: A strong constrictor, it eats snakes, including rattlesnakes, Copperheads, and coral snakes, as well as lizards, mice, birds, and eggs.
Behavior: Active during the day, especially early in the morning or near dusk, but becomes nocturnal in the warm summer months. It is primarily terrestrial, occasionally climbing into shrubs.
Conservation Status: No major threats have been identified. Local declines likely have occurred in areas where habitat has been intensively developed for human uses, but in most of the range this species is not threatened.
Additonal Notes: Record longevity exceeds 24 years.
Subspecies:
Eastern Kingsnake (L.g. getula) - chocolate brown to black with a bold light chainlike pattern, 21 scale rows. Found in southern New Jersey to northern Florida, west to extreme eastern West Virginia, central Virginia, extreme western North Carolina, and southern Alabama. Photo...
California Kingsnake (L.g. californiae) - chocolate brown to black with bold light crossbands or back stripe, 23 to 25 scale rows. Found in southwestern Oregon south to extreme southern Baja California, east to southern Utah and western Arizona.Photo...
Florida Kingsnake (L.g. floridana) - scales are tipped with chocolate brown, yellowish at the base, chainlike pattern of narrow crossbands, often obscure, 23 scale rows. Found in central and southern Florida with isolated population in Duval and Baker counties in northeastern Florida. Photo...
Speckled Kingnskae (L.g. holbrooki) - dark brown or black scales with central light spot, remnants of crossbands present, 21 scale rows; Found in southern Iowa and western Illinois south to eastern Texas, Mississippi, and central and southwestern Alabama. Photo...
Black Kingsnake (L.g. niger) - shiny black with small light dots forming a faint or broken chianlike pattern, 21 scale rows. Found in eastern Illinois to extreme southcentral Ohio and western West Virginia, south to northwestern Georgia and nothern Alabama. Photo...
Mexican Kingsnake (L.g. nigritus) - uniformily black ro black with small light spot on each side scale and some back scales, 23 to 25 scale rows. Found in western Sonora and extreme northwestern Sinaloa, Mexico into southeastern Arizona. Photo...
Desert Kingsnake (L.g. splendida) - back us dark brown to black with narrow light corrsbands, scales on side have central light spots, 23 to 25 scale rows. Found in central Texas west to sotuheastern Arizona south to central Mexico. Photo...
Outer Banks Kingsnake (L.g. sticticeps ) - Found in North Carolina. Photo...
