Description: Adults can be 12 to 26 inches long. Most seen are 8 to 12 inches long, rarely over 16 inches. Hatchlings are about 7 inches in length. A small slender snake with a narrow flat head, smooth scales in 19 rows, and vertical pupils. Color varies, often matching the substrate, from light gray, light brown, beige, to tan or cream, with dark brown or gray blotches on the back and sides. Usually a pair of large dark markings on the neck and a dark bar through or behind the eyes. Whitish or yellowish and unmarked underneath.

Habitat: This snake generally inhabits arid and semiarid plains, canyons, and hillsides, usually in rocky, dissected or hilly terrain with sandy or gravelly soils, including areas dominated by desert, grassland, shrubland, savanna, or woodland. Periods of inactivity are spend under rocks or other surface cover, in crevices, or underground.

Range: The species, Hypsiglena ochrorhyncha - Coast Night Snake, is found in a ring around the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys, including the south coast ranges, and the inner north coast ranges and the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and south into coastal Southern California to the southern tip of Baja California.

Found in these States: CA

Diet: This snake eats mainly lizards and lizard eggs, sometimes other small animals.

Reproduction: Oviparous. After mating, females lay a clutch of 2 to 9 eggs from April to September. Incubation is probably similar to that of the Desert Nightsnake species, H. clorophaea, the eggs of which hatch in 50 to 65 days with hatchlings about 7 inches in length.

Status: Listed as Least Concern in view of the wide distribution, large number of locations, presumed large population, and because the population is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category.

Subspecies: Eight, with just 2 found on the United States:
   Isla Cedros Nightsnake - (Hypsiglena ochrorhynchus baueri)
   Isla Partida Norte Nightsnake - (Hypsiglena ochrorhynchus gularis)
   San Diego Nightsnake - (Hypsiglena ochrorhynchus klauberi)
   San Martín Nightsnake - (Hypsiglena ochrorhynchus martinensis)
   California Nightsnake - (Hypsiglena ochrorhynchus nuchalata)
   Cape Nightsnake - (Hypsiglena ochrorhynchus ochrorhynchus)
   Tortuga Nightsnake - (Hypsiglena ochrorhynchus tortugaensis)
   Magdalena Nightsnake - (Hypsiglena ochrorhynchus venusta)

Taxonomy: