#kingsnakes

[naughtynanzhu]

my tiny sneaky guy is out today ✨

[spoopy-spooks]

Found this cool kingmaker recently

[killjo-q]

Cool down mbk painting

[snototter]

A California mountain kingsnake (Lampropeltis zonata) in LA county, California, USA

by cowyeow

[dougdimmadodo]

California Kingsnake (Lampropeltis californiae)

Family: Colubrid Family (Colubridae)

IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern

Native to the southwestern USA and northwestern Mexico, the California Kingsnake gets its "kingly" name from its unusual diet; members of this species are ophiophagus, meaning that, while they do feed on rodents, frogs and small birds, their diet is made up primarily of other snakes, including numerous venomous species such as rattlesnakes (the venom of which, through means that are not well understood, California Kingsnakes exhibit extreme resistance to.) Although they exhibit an impressive resistance to snake venom members of this species are not venomous themselves (although the striking red-and-yellow bands that run down the bodies of most individuals may be a form of mimicry that allows them to pass for a highly venomous coral snake to deter predators, though this mimicry is notably less convincing than that seen in many related Lampropeltis species such as the Milk Snake,) and instead subdue their prey through constriction, exerting considerably more force than most similarly-sized snakes in what is believed to be an adaptation that aids them in hunting reptiles (constrictor snakes kill their prey by starving the brain and other vital organs of oxygen, but as reptiles use less oxygen than mammals and birds due to their lower metabolic rates exerting greater force is necessary to do so effectively.) Able to survive in a wide range of habitats owing to their ability to enter a dormant state when faced with adverse conditions, California Kingsnakes brumate beneath rocks, logs or within abandoned burrows during the winter and breed shortly after emerging in the late spring, with females laying clutches of 10-20 leathery white eggs among leaf litter or beneath rotting wood throughout the summer.

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Image Source: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/146199-Lampropeltis-californiae

[cathartidae]

pet snek for me please??? looks at u w my big eyes

yes ofc :>here is moar of her

[omg-snakes]

Mountain kingsnake at California Academy of Sciences. I'm a little iffy on why this nonvenomous snake was in the Venom exhibit but I guess it had to be *somewhere*.

[antiqueanimals]

Snakes: the Facts and the Folklore. Written/illustrated by Hilda Simon. 1973.