Ringneck Snake

Diadophis punctatus

Description:

Dark gray above with a bright orange belly. Their defense mechanism is to curl their tail up to show the orange so a predator will attack the tail instead of the head.

Habitat:

Found in the evening on the road in a thorn scrub area.

Species ID Suggestions

9 Comments

AshleyT 10 years ago

Thanks Luis! I've only seen 3, here's another one closer to home, http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/374... I hope to make it out to a place in the spring that you can flip a rock and find 10-15 at one time :)

LuisStevens 10 years ago

Ashley, you had this great series of the Ringneck Snake and I missed it.

AshleyT 10 years ago

Thanks guys! I will never get tired of these guys, they are too cool! The coiled tail is supposed to be a distraction to a predator since they coil it upwards to where the bright color shows in the hopes the predator will go after the tail instead of the head, but doesn't work too well when they put their head next to the coiled up part of their tail like this guy did :)