Rat Snake
| Class: Reptilia:
Reptiles |
Diet: Small mammals |
| Order:
Squamata: Lizards and Snakes |
| Size: 86
cm - 2.5 m (33 3/4 in - 8 1/4 ft) |
| Family: Colubridae:
Colubrine Snakes |
Conservation Status:
Non-threatened |
| Scientific Name:
Elaphe obsoleta |
Habitat: forest,
swamps, farmland, wooded slopes |
| Range:
Southern Canada; USA: Vermont to Minnesota, south to Texas and Florida;
Northern Mexico |
 A
large, powerful species, the rat snake tolerates a variety of habitats
in wet and dry situations. There are 6 or more subspecies, which occur
in one of three main color patterns: plain, blotched or striped. It is
an agile snake, good at climbing, and hunts rodents and other small mammals,
birds and lizards in trees and in barns or ruined buildings. Usually active
during the day, it may tend to be nocturnal in summer. In much of its range,
it hibernates throughout the winter. Rat snakes mate in spring and
autumn. The female lays 5 to 30 eggs in leaf debris or under a rock or
log. The eggs hatch in 2 to 4 months, depending on the temperature: the
warmer the weather, the quicker they hatch.
  
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