Desert Glossy Snake: Small, beautiful and harmless
Desert Glossy Snake: Small, beautiful and harmless
By: Jon Hammond
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Posted by editor Tue Oct 3, 2006 17:14:39 PDT
Viewed 1250 times
0 responses 0 comments There’s a cute little snake that lives in our area but is recognized by few people: the Desert Glossy Snake (Arizona elegans eburnata).
It’s not too surprising that this passive reptile is hardly recognized by anyone — it looks like a pale version of the common Gopher Snake (Pituophis melanoleucus) which may be found virtually anywhere in the Tehachapi area.
Since gopher snakes themselves are often confused with young rattlesnakes (and pointlessly killed as a result), it’s little wonder that most people would identify a desert glossy snake as a gopher snake at first glance.
Desert glossy snakes, like gopher snakes, are members of the large Colubrid snake family, which includes about three-quarters of the world’s 2,700 known snake species. Desert glossies have light tan or cream-colored backs marked with numerous small brown blotches extending the length of their bodies and white bellies with no markings.
This overall light appearance gave rise to an earlier common name for this non-aggressive reptile: Western Faded Snake. As the photos reveal, this coloration is well-suited to the sandy, light-colored environments favoured by glossies. The darkest marking on these pale snakes is the diagonal face stripe which extends from the head down past the eye to the hinge of the jaw.
Incorporating the adjective “glossy” into the snake’s name is appropriate, for these subtly-marked reptiles are very shiny and tend to always look like they’ve just emerged from shedding their old skin and are sporting new clothes.
Desert glossy snakes have been recorded reaching five feet long, but the biggest I’ve ever seen was under three feet and quite slender. They generally eat small lizards but also consume small rodents in areas where mice are plentiful.
Though they do resemble gopher snakes they are much less pugnacious and will usually try to flee from people without hissing or striking. They are good burrowers and can disappear into sand if no escape hole is readily available.
Glossies like creosote bush plains and sagebrush flats more than steep slopes, and are most common in our eastern foothills and the Mojave Desert surrounding us to the east. My brother George seems especially adept at locating glossies and has found many in the mining areas near Tehachapi-Willow Springs Road east of Oak Creek Pass.
These harmless, non-aggressive little snakes with the shiny coat of smooth scales are most often seen in the earlier evening of warm summer nights. Lacking venom or impressive constricting power, they must be careful, for at their size they are as likely to be prey as predator.
Have a good week.
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