Alternate name: Black Rat Snake
Family: Colubridae, Colubrid Snakes view all from this family
Description 42-101" (106.7-256.5 cm). Long, powerful constrictor with 3 different adult color patterns predominating: plain, striped, and blotched. Plain is black often with white showing between scales. Striped is red, orange, yellow, brown, or gray with 4 dark stripes. Blotched is light gray, yellow, or brown with dark brown, gray, or black blotches down back. Belly uniformly white, yellow, orange, or gray, often with dark mottling or checks. Belly scales flat in middle, ends angled up sharply. Underside of tail not striped. If present, dark stripe through eye does not reach neck. All young vividly blotched. Scales weakly keeled, in 25-33 rows. Anal plate divided.
Subspecies Black (E. o. obsoleta), plain black or with traces of white between scales; s. Vermont to North Carolina coast, southwest to c. Georgia, north to sc. Illinois, south to n. Louisiana and Oklahoma, north to sw. Minnesota and s. Michigan.
Texas (E. o. lindheimeri), yellow or grayish, with brown to blackish blotches, often with orange showing between scales; s. Louisiana to ec. Texas.
Yellow (E. o. quadrivittata), tan, yellow, or yellow-orange with 4 distinct dark stripes, tongue black; coastal North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and most of Florida peninsula.
Everglades (E. o. rossalleni), red, red-orange, or orange with 4 faint stripes, tongue red; Everglades of s. Florida.
Gray (E. o. spiloides), whitish to gray with brown to dark gray blotches, occasionally with 4 stripes on neck; s. Illinois and extreme sw. Indiana south to Mississippi coast and east to sw. Georgia and nw. Florida panhandle.
Breeding Mates April to June and in autumn. Clutch of 5-30 smooth-shelled, oblong eggs, 1 1/2-2 1/4" (38-57 mm) long, laid in rotten logs, leaf litter or under rocks June to August; hatch in 7 1/2-15 1/2 weeks, August to October. Hatchlings are 11-16" (28-41 cm) long.
Similar Species Baird's Rat Snake (E. bairdi), a brown or gray-brown to orange-brown constrictor with 4 dark stripes running down its back, is found from c. Texas west to Big Bend region and adjacent Mexico. It was formerly considered a subspecies of E. obsoleta.
Habitat Hardwood forest, wooded canyons, swamps, rocky timbered upland, farmland, old fields, barnyards; from wet to arid situations; sea level to 4,400' (1,350 m).
Range E. Ontario and s. Vermont south to Florida Keys, west to c. Texas, north to sw. Minnesota, and s. Michigan.
Discussion Active during the day in spring and fall but becomes nocturnal in summer. A skillful climber, it ascends trees or rafters of abandoned buildings in search of birds, eggs, and mice. Also eats other small mammals and lizards. Hawks may home in on a nest-raiding Rat Snake when it is being heckled by other birds. In northern areas the Rat Snake frequently shares winter dens with Timber Rattlesnakes and Copperheads; thus the local names Rattlesnake Pilot and Pilot Black Snake. Captive longevity exceeds 20 years.
