Baird's Rat Snake

Pantherophis bairdi is a harmless colubrid species found in the United States in the Big Bend region of western Texas, as well as in northern Mexico in Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. The species was named in honor of the American zoologist Spencer Fullerton Baird. No subspecies are currently recognized.


Description

Adults can reach 25 to 55 inches in length. The color pattern consists of an orange-yellow to bright yellow, or a darker salmon ground color, overlaid with four stripes that run from the neck to the tail. The belly is generally gray to yellow, darkening near the tail.

The primary diet consists of rodents, although they will also prey on birds. Juveniles often eat lizards. They are typically more pleasantly tempered than other rat snake species. They are oviparous, laying a clutch of up to 10 eggs that takes about 3 months to hatch. Prefers semi-arid, rocky habitats.

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texas long-nosed snake

A Rhinocheilus lecontei tessellatus (a snake).

Description

A tricolor subspecies, its color pattern consists of a cream-colored or white body, overlaid with black blotches and red between the black. It gives them an appearance vaguely similar to that of a venomous coral snake, Micrurus tener or Micruroides euryxanthus. They have an elongated snout, which gives them their common name. They grow to approximately 30 inches (76 cm) in length; record 41 inches (104 cm).[1] In some western localities their red coloration can be greatly reduced, giving them a black and white banded appearance, and other localities the red appears more orange or even pink in color. They differ from all other harmless snakes in the United States by having undivided subcaudal plates.

Behavior

The Texas long-nosed snake is a shy, nocturnal burrowing subspecies.

Diet

It feeds on lizards and amphibians, sometimes smaller snakes and, infrequently, rodents.
 
Reproduction
Rhinocheilus lecontei tessellatus is oviparous, laying clutches of 4-9 eggs in the early summer, which hatch out in the late summer, or early fall.

Conservation status

This subspecies holds no federal conservation status and no status through most of its range, but it is considered to be vulnerable in Kansas and Oklahoma, and critically endangered in Colorado. Primary threats are from habitat destruction.

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