Texas Snakes by Michael Forstner

Author:Michael Forstner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2000-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Adult from San Jacinto County. Photo by T. J. Hibbitts.

COMPARABLE SNAKES The red and yellow rings of the Texas coralsnake are always in contact with one another, whereas in the milksnakes the red and yellow rings are always separated by a black ring. Furthermore, the coralsnake’s black rings, which are as wide as its red ones, are much broader than those of the milksnake, and all of the coral’s rings cross the belly uninterrupted. Except for small, unconnected spots on the very outside edges of some belly plates, the abdomen of northern scarlet and Texas scarlet snakes is white and unmarked. The belly of the long-nosed snake also is unmarked white; the sides of its black dorsal blotches are prominently speckled with yellow, and the red interspaces are spotted with black. Moreover, it has 23 midbody rows of dorsal scales, and most of the scales under its tail are in a single row (double in milksnakes).

Assigning a particular specimen of L. triangulum to the correct subspecies may at times be difficult. Not only are the four Texas races of the milksnake generally similar to each other in color and pattern, but also wherever two subspecies converge geographically the individual specimens likely carry the genes of both races, compounding the difficulty of assigning the specimen to either one. The simplest recourse in such cases is to assign the doubtful specimen to the nearest race, based on its collecting locality.

SIZE Adults usually range in length from 16 to 22 inches (40.6–55.9 cm), but a record specimen measured 31 inches (78.7 cm) long.

HABITAT Generally distributed over the eastern third of the state, this snake is most frequently encountered in the low-lying oak-cypress-tupelo forests of southeastern Texas and the pine-hardwood forests that occur in the east-central part of the state. In such regions it is most prevalent in moist, sandy situations where trees and shrubs provide adequate shade, although under less typical circumstances it has been found at a few isolated localities on the treeless, grass-covered sand dunes of the Gulf Coast barrier islands.

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