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 : Unusual and
Aberrant Patterns

Page 3:
Habitats

Pictures and information about this snake and its habitat have been put on three pages.
Page 1, this page, contains pictures of the more common banded form of the California Kingsnake, plus a range map, a description and natural history information, and links to more information.
Page 2 shows some other naturally-occuring pattern types and aberrant patterns.
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, Riverside County desert
© Jeremiah Easter

Adult in defensive pose with everted
vent, coastal Monterey County

Adult, coastal Monterey County

Adult, Yuba County

Adult, El Dorado County
© Richard Porter

Juvenile, western Riverside County

Adult, Alameda County

Adult, with light speckling, Yolo County © John Stephenson

Desert phase adult, San Diego County desert

Adult, Lake County

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

Adult with a high band count and lots of yellow, Yolo County. © Richard Porter

Adult, Inyo County

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 Eating

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

Other Morphs and Habitat

Go to Page 2 to see some other naturally-occuring pattern types and aberrant patterns 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 striped California Kingsnake crawls across a dirt road in the afternoon.

A disgruntled aberrant kingsnake rears up in a partially-coiled defensive posture, strikes repeatedly at the photographer, then leaps off a rock to freedom.

A distressed California Kingsnake vibrates its tail.

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

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.

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

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

Found throughout California, except the damp redwood zone of the extreme northwest coast, and the northeast corner. Absent from high elevations in the Sierras, the Trinity Alps, and the Cascades. Rages north into southwestern Oregon, east into southern Nevada, southern Utah, southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico, and south through much of Arizona into Sonora, Mexico, and south throughout the Baja California peninsula.
An introduced population occurs on Gran Canaria Island in the Canary Islands, where there are no native snakes.

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. 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 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 several times each year by the California Department of Fish and Game. 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 Game	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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