Herpetofauna - One Life's List

Black Rat Snake
Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta

Franklin Co., Missouri. Spring 1974.
 

 

 Here's a truly cosmopolitan snake; I have found them in bushes, trees, attics, junkyards, creekbeds, and backyards.  I have seen them on bluff faces, in open fields, and in deep woods.  After a warm summer thunderstorm I've found them out on the wet tarmac.  They hibernate in many places - underground, in rotting logs and standing hollow trees, in rock crevices and caves.  I once found an obsoleta coiled up next to several Osage Copperheads in a small cave in Missouri.

They climb rather well and apparently spend a great deal of time up in bushes and in trees, keeping them safe from predators and giving them access to birds and baby squirrels.

The standard black or bluish black ground color holds variable colors between the scales - white, orange, and sometimes a brilliant red.  The snake in the middle photo, from southern Illinois, shows a faint blotched pattern.  The juvenile in the bottom left photo indicates that quite a color transformation takes place!

I've added the photo below to show a behavior I've seen occasionally; the gravel road has been warmed considerably by the morning sun, and the snake is apparently trying to put as much of its ventral surface area as possible in contact with the warm substrate.  I've also observed this behavior on asphalt roads after a thunderstorm; the road is still very warm, and perhaps the thin film of water helps conduct heat.  Come to think of it, I've seen Baird's Rat Snakes in Texas do the very same thing on dry roads at dusk.

 
Return to Life List Index                    Return to Mike's Page