Eastern Kingsnake

This is the first eastern kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula) of this pattern that I’ve found around here (actually, it’s probably the first period). So you can imagine how excited I was. With its chain pattern of pale yellow banding on jet black. it’s a very handsome snake.

Hatchlings can be up to 12 inches long and old adults up to 7 feet. This was maybe 3 feet long so probably a young adult. I played with it a bit and it scooted under a log raised off the ground. It didn’t appear on the other side, and it wasn’t under the arch of the log, so it seems to have somehow gone inside the wood or had a passage underneath.

As the link says, king snakes are impervious to pit viper venom and so those turn out to be good candidates for dinner. SREL [Savannah River Ecology Laboratory] reports that populations are here have been documented to be in decline, especially in the coastal plain.

Credit: Wayne Hughes, May 2009; photographed in the rolling hills of the Wolfskin district of the northeast Georgia Piedmont; used by permission. [source].

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