Larger Snakes 

Summer weather brings improved chances for finding snakes.  Our reptilian neighbors include several small snakes and three large ones: Rattlesnakes, gopher snakes, and king snakes. The one shown above is a gopher snake, from one of my own photos at a formal portrait session (L.A. Zoo, 1978).

These and other smaller snakes are part of our natural ecosystem, so don't be shocked if your cat or
dog brings one in as an offering.  And remember "Don't tread on me -- especially if I'm a
rattlesnake!"

RattlesnakesI Image courtesy of John Sullivan, from his web site:
www.wildherps.com

The segmented rattle forms one segment at a time whenever the snake sheds its skin.  This can be 3 or 4 times per year in young snakes, or only once per year in old timers -- some have been known to live to age 19.  They rattle when upset or threatened, and may hiss as well to show their displeasure.  However, being quiet doesn't guarantee that the snake isn't upset, evil-tempered, and ready to strike!

Ironically, rattlesnakes can't hear the noise of their own rattles -- they're deaf.  They have good eyesight and smell for hunting, sensing aromas with a structure on the roof of their mouth called
Jacobson's organ.  Their flicking tongue picks up tiny particles and molecules from the air, then moves them to this internal sensor.

Rattlesnakes also sense heat.  As members of the snake family known as pit vipers, they have pit-like structures on the sides of their head, between eye and nostril, that sense the direction of heat from would-be prey.

Image courtesy of John Sullivan, from his web site:  www.wildherps.com
Rattlesnakes' favorite food is ground squirrels, but any small animal is fair game.  Like all snakes, they swallow their prey whole and can eat only anything small enough to fit through their gaping jaws.  Sometimes a fang breaks off when they strike their prey.  No matter, they can regenerate a new fang in as little as two hours!

Most snakes lay eggs with leathery shells, but rattlesnakes and garter snakes hatch eggs within their own body and give birth to live young.  Rattlers produce about 14 youngsters at once, each 14 to 20 inches long, such as the one in this photo.  The young are venomous, but lack rattles until they first shed their skin.

Gopher snakes

Gopher snakes, Pituophis melanoleucus, are the 4th largest snake in the U.S., with adult length ranging from 48 to 100 inches.  Their markings are almost identical to those of rattlesnakes, and their behavior when disturbed mimics that of a rattlesnake.  They puff up their head to look like the flattened head of a rattler, and even shake their tail as if it had a rattle.  All of these traits make it easy to confuse gopher snakes with their poisonous lookalikes. Nonpoisonous snakes are constrictors, killing their prey by crushing it.  Gopher snakes, including the variants called bull snakes and pine snakes, are particularly powerful constrictors with stout bodies ending in a slender tail.

These reptiles mate in the spring, laying 3 to 25 eggs per clutch.  The young hatch between June and August, with exact time depending on the weather.  As cold-blooded animals, snakes of all types have limited tolerance for excessively low or high temperatures;  in fact they die at temperatures as little as 3 to 4 degrees below freezing.  One way they avoid these extremes is to adopt a rodent burrow and take shelter underground.
 

Kingsnakes 

California Kingsnakes, Lampropeltis getulus, love to eat other snakes.  That includes rattlesnakes, whose venom doesn't bother the kings.

With adult size between 36 and 82 inches, king snakes have a round (not flattened) body with color ranging from black to chocolate brown, and occasionally paler.  They have rings that look white on a black snake or yellow on paler snakes.

Common throughout the southern U.S., king snakes are very active during daylight hours.  They're known to climb shrubs and trees, and will eat not only snakes but also mice, lizards, bird young, and other small animals.  They lay clutches of 3 to 24 eggs between March and June, which hatch in 8 1/2 to 11 weeks.

Another kingsnake that might be seen in our general area is the more colorful California mountain kingsnake, Lampropeltis zonata, which has a specific Sierra variety.