Description: Adults are 11 - 17 inches long. A small rounded snake with smooth, unkeeled, shiny scales. The head is narrow with a large spade-like scale on the tip of a flat shovel-like snout, a countersunk lower jaw, and nasal valves. The ground color is cream or yellowish and the body is circled with 24 or more dark brown bands, usually with no red crossbands between them. Most dark bands do not completely encircle the body.

Habitat: Inhabits dry desert habitats with loose sand and often with little vegetation - washes, dunes, sandy flats, rocky hillsides.

Range: The species Chionactis occipitalis - Western Shovel-nosed Snake, occurs from the Southern California deserts into Nevada, western Arizona, Baja California and northern Sonora, Mexico.

Found in these States: AZ | CA | NV

Diet: Eats invertebrates: insects, scorpions, spiders, centipedes, larval insects and moths, often while the snake is burrowing.

Reproduction: Females are oviparous, laying eggs late spring through summer.

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: