Description: A large, slender, agile, and fast moving snake. Adults are uniformily black, blue, brown, or greenihs above and white yellow, or dark gray below. The young are typically gray and conspicuously marked with dark spots on the sides and dark gray, brown or reddish-brown blotches down the midline of the back. The scales are smooth and in 17 rows with the anal plate being divided.
Habitat: Most racers prefer open, grassland type habitat where their keen eyesight and speed can be readily used, but they are also found in light forest and even semi-arid regions. They are usually not far from an area of cover to hide in.
Breeding: Mating takes place in the spring, from April until early June. Around a month later the female will lay anywhere from 3 to 30 eggs in a hidden nest site such as a hollow log, an abandoned rodent burrow, or under a rock. The 8-10" long juvenile racers hatch in the early fall. Maturity is reached in approximately 2 years. Racers have been known to lay their eggs in communal sites, where a number of snakes, even those from other species, all lay their eggs together.
Range: Southern British Columbia and extreme southern Ontario; every state in the continental U.S. except Alaska ,with scattered populations through eastern Mexico to nothern Guatemala.
Diet: Their diet consists primarily of rodents, frogs, and lizards, and some subspecies are known to climb trees in order to eat eggs and young birds. Juveniles often consume soft-bodied insects, such as crickets and moths.
Behavior: Racers are fast moving, highly active, diurnal snakes. Despite their scientific name of constrictor, they do not really employ constriction, instead simply subduing struggling prey by pinning it bodily, pressing one or two coils against it to hold it in place instead of actually suffocating it. Most smaller prey items are simply swallowed alive.
Racers typically prefer to make use of their speed to flee when confronted by a potential predator, and if handled they generally do not hesitate to bite, and sometimes release a foul smelling musk from their cloaca. They are curious snakes with excellent vision, and are sometimes seen raising their head above the height of the grass they are crawling in to view what is around them.
Conservation Status: n/a
Additonal Notes: Despite its scientific name this snake is not a constrictor.
Subspecies:
Northern Black Racer (C.c. constrictor) - slate black, upper lip scales black, some white on the chin, the iris of the eyes are brown. Found from southern Maine to eastern Ohio south to northern South Carolina, northern Georgia, northern Alabama, and northeastern Mississippi. Photo...
Buttermilk Racer (C.c. anthicus) - Black, bluish-black or bluish-green with random white , gray, or yellow spots. Found from extreeme southern Arkansas, Louisiana, and adjacent eastern Texas. Photo...
Tan Racer (C.c. etheridgei) - light tan with pale spots. Found in extreme westcentral Louisiana into adjacent Texas. Photo...
Eastern Yellow-Bellied Racer (C.c. flaviventris) - pale blue, bluish-green, olive-green, gray or brown above with the underside being creeam to bright yellow. Found from eastern Montana, western North Dakota, and Iowa south to extreme northern Arkansas and the Gulf coast of southeastern Texas and western Louisiana. Photo...
Blue Racer (C.c. foxi) - pale blue or bluish-green above with the underside being white ir bluish-white. Found from extreme southern Ontario and northwestern Ohion west to southeastern Minnesota, eastern Iowa, and Illinois. Photo...
Brown-Chinned Racer (C.c. helvigularis) - slate black with the lip scales and chin tan or brown. Found in the Apalachicola and Chipola River Valleys in the Florida Panhandle and adjacent Georgia. Photo...
Black-Masked Racer (C.c. latrunculus) - Slate gray above with the undersider being pale grayish-blue and a black stripe behind the eye. Found in southeastern Louisiana. Photo...
Western Yellow-Bellied Racer (C.c. mormon) - green, olive-green, yeelowish-brown, or reddish-brown above with the underside being yellow. Found from southern British Columbia to Baja California east to southwestern Montana, western Wyoming, and western Colorado. Photo...
Mexican Racer (C.c. oaxaca) - The midline of the back is green or greenish-gray, the sides are lighter, and the underside is yellow or greenihs-yellow. Found in Texas and Mexico. Photo...
Everglades Racer (C.c. paludicola) - bluish, greenish, or brownish gray above with the underside being white with pale gray or powder blue markings. The iris is usually red. Found in the southern Flrodia Everglades region and Cape Canaveral area of eastern Florida. Photo...
Southern Black Racer (C.c. priapus) - resembles the Northern Black Racer but with more white on the chin, and the iris of the eye is usually red of orange. Found from the coastal plain from extreme southeastern North Carolina to the Florida Everglades (and lower Florida Keys) west to southeastern Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, southeastern Mississippi Valley to southern Illinois and southern Indiana. Photo...
