Range in California: Green
Click the map for a guide
to the other subspecies
Listen to a Gopher Snake
hissing defensively
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Adult, Inyo County |
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Adult, Inyo County |
Adult, Inyo County |
Juvenile, Inyo County |
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Adult, Victorville, San Bernardino County © 2004 Roxanne Ward |
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How to Tell the Difference Between Gopher Snakes and Rattlesnakes |
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A harmless gopher snake is sometimes mistaken for a venomous rattlesnake and killed unnecessarily (by someone who wrongly believes that all rattlesnakes should be killed.) It is easy to avoid this mistake and save the life of a harmless beneficial snake by learning to tell the difference between a gopher snake and a rattlesnake.These signs explain how to do that. Still, if you do not have training in handling venomous snakes, you should never handle any snake unless you are absolutely certain that it is not dangerous. |
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Follow these links to see more pictures of this subspecies from the Northwest and from the Southwest.
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Habitat |
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Habitat, Lassen County
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Habitat, Inyo County |
Habitat, San Bernardino County |
Short Videos |
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A Great Basin Gophersnake crawls across a road and into the grass in the Owens Valley. |
A Great Basin Gophersnake crawls across a dirt road in Okanagan County, Washington. |
A distressed Pacific Gopher Snake shakes its tail rapidly, which makes a buzzing sound as the tail touches the ground. This behavior might be a mimic of a rattlesnake's rattlng, or it could be a similar behavior that helps to warn off an animal that could be a threat to the gopher snake. |
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Description |
Nonvenomous |
| Considered harmless to humans. |
| Size |
| Adults of this species can be 2.5 - 7 feet long (76 - 213 cm.) Great Basin Gophersnakes have been recorded up to 6 feet (183 cm) and are most commonly under 5 ft. long (152 cm.) Hatchlings of P. catenifer are fairly long, generally around 15 inches in length (38 cm.) |
| Appearance |
| A large snake with heavily keeled scales, a narrow head that is slightly wider than the neck, and a protruding rostral scale on the tip of the snout. Ground color is cream to yellowish, with large brown, blackish, and reddish brown blotches along the back and smaller markings on the sides. Often the blotches form a dark band on the sides of the neck. The back of the neck is pale in the southern part of the range, but mottled with dark coloring in the northern part of the range. The underside is pale with some dark markings. |
| Behavior |
Active in the daytime, and at night in hot weather, and especially at dusk and dawn. One of the most commonly seen snakes on roads and trails, especially in the spring when males are actively seeking a mate, and in the fall when hatchlings emerge. A good burrower, climber, and swimmer. A powerful constrictor; kills prey by suffocating them in body coils or by pressing the animal against the walls of their underground burrows.
When threatened, a gophersnake willl elevate and inflate its body, flatten its head into a triangular shape, hiss loudly, and quickly shake its tail back and forth to make a buzzing sound which may be a mimic of a rattlesnake rattle.
You can listen to a recording of a gophersnake hissing here, and watch short movies of a gopher snake hissing and striking here, and shaking its tail here. |
| Diet |
| Small mammals, especially pocket gophers, birds and their eggs, and occasionally lizards and insects. |
| Reproduction |
| As with other subspecies, eggs are probably laid June - August, hatching in 2 to 2.5 months. |
| Range |
| Occurs in southeastern California north of approximately the Riverside county line through the Mojave Desert and east of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Ranges north through nevada, eastern Oregon and Washington into British Columbia. Also found in parts of Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, and new Mexico. There is a wide range of integration with P. c. catenifer in northeastern California and eastern Oregon. Also intergrades with P. c. annectans in the south. |
| Habitat |
| Found in a variety of habitats - grassland, coastal sage scrub, agricultural lands, riparian areas, woodlands, and desert, from sea level to the mountains. Especially common in coastal areas. |
| Taxonomic Notes |
| 8 subspecies of Pituophis catenifer are recognized - 2 occur in Baja California, and 6 occur in the United States. It has been proposed that the snakes from Baja California are a new species. 5 of these subspecies occur in California, with one endemic, and one that only occurs in California and Baja California. Gophersnakes are related to Ratsnakes and Kingsnakes, and they have been known to interbreed with these species. |
| Conservation Issues (Conservation Status) |
| A very common snake, but often mistaken for the similar rattlesnake and killed unnecessarily. Frequently killed by traffic when crossing roads. |
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Taxonomy |
| Family |
Colubridae |
Colubrids |
| Genus |
Pituophis |
Bullsnakes, Gopher Snakes, and Pinesnakes |
| Species |
catenifer |
Gopher Snake |
Subspecies
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deserticola |
Great Basin Gopher Snake |
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Original Description |
Pituophis catenifer - (Blainville, 1835) - Nouv. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris, Vol. 4, p. 290, pl. 26, figs. 2-2b
Pituophis catenifer deserticola - Stejneger, 1893 - N. Amer. Fauna, No. 7, p. 206
from Original Description Citations for the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America © Ellin Beltz
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Meaning of the Scientific Name |
Pituophis - Greek - pitys- pine and ophis - snake - possibly referring to habitat of nominate subspecies on U.S. east coast (the Pine Snake)
catenifer - Latin - catena - chain and -ifera - bearing - referring to the dorsal pattern
deserticola - Latin - desert dry place and -icola - inhabitant of - refers to its habitat
from Scientific and Common Names of the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America - Explained © Ellin Beltz
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Alternate Names |
Formerly Pituophis melanoleucus
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Related or Similar California Snakes |
P. c. affinis - Sonoran Gopher Snake
P. c. annectens - San Diego Gopher Snake
P. c. catenifer - Pacific Gopher Snake
P. c. deserticola - Great Basin Gopher Snake
P. c. pumilis - Santa Cruz Island Gopher Snake
A. e. candida - Mohave Glossy Snake
A. e. eburnata - Desert Glossy Snake
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More Information and References |
Natureserve Explorer
California Dept. of Fish and Game
Patrick Briggs' World Pituophis Site
Stebbins, Robert C. A Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians. 3rd Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003.
Behler, John L., & F. Wayne King. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles and Amphibians. Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.
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.
Brown, Philip R. A Field Guide to Snakes of California. Gulf Publishing Co., 1997.
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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.
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Organization
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Status Listing
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| U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) |
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| California Endangered Species Act (CESA) |
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| California Department of Fish and Game |
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| Bureau of Land Management |
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| USDA Forest Service |
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| Natureserve Global Conservation Status Ranks |
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World Conservation Union - IUCN Red List
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