A Guide to the Amphibians
and Reptiles of California

Lampropeltis getula californiae - California Kingsnake

Click on a picture for a larger view

Range in California: Red

Page 2 : Naturally-Occurring Aberrant Morphs

Page 3:
Habitat

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Pictures and information about this snake and its habitat have been put on three pages:
Page 1, this page, shows to see pictures of the more common banded form of the California Kingsnake, plus a range map, a species description and natural history information, references, and links to more information.
Page 2 illustrates naturally-occuring aberrant morph California Kingsnakes.
Page 3 shows some of the wide variety of habitats utilized by this snake.

Sub-adult, Kings County

Adult, Yuba County

Adult, coastal San Luis Obispo County

Adult, Inyo County desert

Adult, San Diego County mountains

Adult, eastern Alameda County

Adult, Inyo County

Adult, desert phase, Riverside County desert © Jeremiah Easter

Adult, Southern Monterey County
© Benjamin German

Adult, coastal Monterey County

Adult, Yuba County

Adult, El Dorado County
© Richard Porter

Juvenile, western Riverside County

Adult, Alameda County

Adult, Lake County

Desert phase adult, San Diego County desert

Adult, Inyo County

Adult in defensive pose with everted
vent, Big Sur, Monterey County

The everted hemipenes of a male California Kingsnake. © Patrick Briggs

California Kingsnake tracks on a dusty road in San Diego County. At 1 PM on a sunny 80 degree day in early June, a striped kingsnake crossed this road. After a short photo session, it crawled away, leaving this track.

California Kingsnakes Hunting and Feeding

A striped phase California Kingsnake eating a juvenile Southern Pacific Rattlesnake in San Diego County. © Kimberly Deutsch

Sacramento County adult eating a juvenile Northern Pacific Rattlesnake.
© Michele Coughlin

California Kingsnakes are powerful predators capable of eating other snakes almost as large as they are. Here you can see one eating a Gophersnake.
© Patrick Briggs

Adult eating a lizard, Santa Catalina Island. © Nathan Smith

Adult snake looking for food in a bird nest box in Sonoma County © John McClain

Naturally-Occurring Aberrant Morphs and Habitat

Go to Page 2 to see some other naturally-occuring aberrant morphs of California Kingsnakes.

Go to Page 3 to see pictures of some of the wide variety of habitats inhabited by California Kingsnakes.

Short Videos

A very large banded kingsnake crawls off a road and up onto a rock face in a Kern County desert canyon at night.

A kingsnake crawls very quickly across the Colorado desert at night in San Diego County.

A beautiful banded adult California Kingsnake crosses a road at night in Alameda County, reminding me that my favorite thing about an encounter with a snake is watching it crawl away.

A distressed San Diego County California Kingsnake vibrates its tail.

Here's a link to another video of a defensive California Kingsnake, sent to me by Paivi Kangas.

More videos of snakes with unusual or aberrant patterns on Page 2.

Description

Nonvenomous

Considered harmless to humans.

Size

Adult Lampropeltis getula are 30 - 85 inches ( 76 - 216 cm). California Kingsnakes do not reach that size, seldom exceeding 48 inches. Most commonly found at 2.5 - 3.5 feet in length. Hatchlings are about 12 inches long.

Appearance

Smooth, shiny, unkeeled scales. The head is barely wider than the neck. Highly variable in appearance. Most commonly seen with alternating bands of black or brown and white or light yellow, including the underside, where the light bands become wider. A striped phase with a white or light yellow stripe on the back occurs in coastal southern California. An unbanded phase with a dark belly and lateral striping occurs in the northern San Joaquin Valley and southern Sacramento Valley. A dark banded phase with a dark underside occurs in coastal Los Angeles County, some with a high number of bands. A desert phase occurs with dark black bands and narrow bright white bands. Some variants have much dark speckling in the light bands, others with much light speckling in the dark bands.

Behavior

Active during daylight in cooler weather and at night, dawn, and dusk when temperatures are high. When disturbed, generally not aggressive, but sometimes vibrates the tail quickly, hisses, and rolls into a ball, hiding the head and showing the vent with it's lining exposed. A powerful constrictor, coiling tightly around its prey. Immune to rattlesnake venom. A popular pet snake. Many unusual color phases have been bred, including albinos.

Diet

Eats a wide variety of prey, including rodents and other small mammals, lizards, snakes (including rattlesnakes) turtle eggs and hatchlings, frogs, salamanders, birds eggs and chicks, and large invertebrates.

Reproduction

Lays eggs May through August.

Range

This subspecies, Lampropeltis getula californiae - California Kingsnake, is found throughout California, except the damp redwood zone of the extreme northwest coast, the northeast great basin desert, and high elevations in the Sierra Nevada and other mountain ranges. Outside of the state, it occurs in southwestern Oregon, southern Nevada, southern Utah, southwestern Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, much of Arizona, and in Mexico in Sonora and Baja California.

An introduced population occurs on Gran Canaria Island in the Canary Islands, where there are no native snakes.

The species Lampropeltis getula - Common Kingsnake, occurs in a very wide range, from the Pacific Coast, to Florida, including most of the southern part of the U. S., south into Mexico.

Habitat

Found in a wide variety of habitats - forest, woodland, chaparral, grassland, marshes, farmland, ranches, deserts, and even brushy suburban areas.

Conservation Issues (Conservation Status)

None.

Taxonomy
Family	Colubridae	Colubrids
Genus	Lampropeltis	Kingsnakes and Milksnakes
Species	getula	Common Kingsnake
Subspecies	californiae	California Kingsnake
Original Description
Lampropeltis getula - (Linnaeus, 1766) - Syst. Nat., 12th ed., Vol. 1, p. 382 Lampropeltis getula californiae - (Blainville, 1835) - Nouv. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris, Vol. 4, p. 292, pl. 27, fig. 1 from Original Description Citations for the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America © Ellin Beltz
Meaning of the Scientific Name
Lampropeltis - Greek - lampros - shiny and pelta - shield - referring to the smooth, shiny dorsal scales characteristic of this genus getula - Latin - Refers to the Getulian people of Morocco, whose tribal insignia resembles the chain-like pattern of the kingsnakes of the eastern U.S.A. (Pyron & Burbrink) californiae - of the state of California - which includes most of the range of this subspecies. mostly from Scientific and Common Names of the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America - Explained © Ellin Beltz
Alternate Names
None
Related or Similar California Snakes
L. zonata - California Mountain Kingsnake R. l. lecontei - Western Long-nosed Snake C. o. occipitalis - Mojave Shovel-nosed Snake
More Information and References
Natureserve Explorer California Dept. of Fish and Game Stebbins, Robert C., and McGinnis, Samuel M. Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles of California: Revised Edition (California Natural History Guides) University of California Press, 2012. Stebbins, Robert C. California Amphibians and Reptiles. The University of California Press, 1972. Stebbins, Robert C. A Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians. 3rd Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003. Behler, John L., and F. Wayne King. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians. Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. Powell, Robert., Joseph T. Collins, and Errol D. Hooper Jr. A Key to Amphibians and Reptiles of the Continental United States and Canada. The University Press of Kansas, 1998. Bartlett, R. D. & Patricia P. Bartlett. Guide and Reference to the Snakes of Western North America (North of Mexico) and Hawaii. University Press of Florida, 2009. Bartlett, R. D. & Alan Tennant. Snakes of North America - Western Region. Gulf Publishing Co., 2000. Brown, Philip R. A Field Guide to Snakes of California. Gulf Publishing Co., 1997. Ernst, Carl H., Evelyn M. Ernst, & Robert M. Corker. Snakes of the United States and Canada. Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003. Wright, Albert Hazen & Anna Allen Wright. Handbook of Snakes of the United States and Canada. Cornell University Press. Pyron, R. Alexander, & Frank T. Burbrink. Systematics of the Common Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula; Serpentes: Colubridae) and the burden of heritage in taxonomy Zootaxa 2241: 22-32 (2009) www.mapress.com/zootaxa/ Copyright © 2009 - Magnolia Press Southern California Kingsnakes - A Website Dedicated to All Cal King Enthusiasts To learn much more about California Kingsnakes, check out this book: Hubbs, Brian. Common Kingsnakes, A Natural History of Lampropeltis getula. 2009.

Conservation Status
The following status listings come from the Special Animals List which is published by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. This snake is not included on the Special Animals List, which indicates that there are no significant conservation concerns for it in California.
Organization	Status Listing
U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA)	None
California Endangered Species Act (CESA)	None
California Department of Fish and Wildlife	None
Bureau of Land Management	None
USDA Forest Service	None
Natureserve Global Conservation Status Ranks
World Conservation Union - IUCN Red List

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