Speckled Kingsnake

Description:

Nonvenomous snake with shiny black or chocolate-colored scales snake and pale yellow or white-speckled markings. The belly is pale yellow, checkered, or black-blotched. The dorsal scales are smooth, anal plate undivided. These snakes reach 18 to 36 inches, but can reach six feet long. The Speckled Kingsnake is a powerful constrictor and generalized carnivore, with a keen sense of smell. It is an egg-bearing snake, and though nonvenomous, it may bite. This snake is beneficial to man, as it will eat other snakes, even venomous snakes, and also eats smaller vertebrates, including mammals, lizards, frogs, birds, eggs, fish, and even other Speckled Kingsnakes.

Habitat:

They are numerous all throughout East Texas and the upper coast, especially in spring. They are abundant in brackish swamps, bottomland forests, wet, grassy pastures, under beach-barrier driftwood, logs, and around stumps, and near streams, preferring a wetter environment than not.

Notes:

The Speckled Kingsnake is a truly beautiful snake, beneficial to man, a friend to the gardener. Although they may be aggressive and may bite, this nonvenomous snake is usually docile and easily tamed.