Description: Adults of the species are 20 to 75 inches long. Hatchlings are 8 to 11 inches long. A slender snake with large eyes, a broad head and a slender neck, smooth scales, and a long thin tail. Plain brown, blue-grey, or olive-green to green above and unmarked off-white or yellowish below. Young have dark blotches on the sides and 70 - 85 dark blotches on the back. At one time juveniles were thought to be a different species of snake than the adults due to the dramatic difference in appearance between the blotched juveniles and the plain-colored adults.

Habitat: Prefers open areas with sunny exposure - meadows, grassland, sagebrush flats, brushy chaparral, woodlands, riparian areas such as pond edges, and forest openings. Found in arid and moist habitats, but not usually found in deserts or high mountains.

Range: This subspecies is found throughout most of california north and west of the Sierras, and south along the coast to the Baja California border. It is also found on Santa Cruz Island. Outside of California the subspecies continues north through Oregon and eastern Washington into British Columbia, Canada, and east through parts of Idaho, Montana, and Utah into western Colorado, with some isolated populations in eastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico.

Found in these States: CA | CO | ID | KS | MT | NE | NV | OK | OR | SD | TX | UT | WA | WY

Diet: Eats lizards, small mammals, birds, eggs, snakes, small turtles and frogs, and large insects.

Reproduction: Females are oviparous, laying 3 to 11 eggs in mid summer, sometimes in communal nests. Eggs hatch in late summer

Status: Listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution, tolerance of a broad range of habitats, presumed large population, and because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category.

Taxonomy: