Eastern Earth Snake (Virgnia valeriae valeriae)
Description: Small fossorial species mostly plain gray, brown or reddish brown with scattered small black dots or flecks. The belly is unmarked white or yellow in color. Scales smooth with a divided anal plate. Juveniles are similar to adults. Rare in Pennsylvania having not been observed in recent years. Found under various cover objects.
Habitat: Deciduous forest, open hardwood forest, wood/field borders. May be found under rocks, logs, leaf litter, and other surface debris.
Range: New Jersey to Georgia and west through northern Alabama, Tennessee, and southern Ohio.
Diet: The eastern earth snake eats primarily earthworms and soft-bodied arthropods.
Reproduction: bears live young in August. Brood size is usually fewer than 10. The total length of a newborn is about bout 2.5 inches.
Status: Listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution, tolerance of a degree of habitat modification, presumed large population, and because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category.
»» Kingdom: Animalia - Animals
»» Phylum: Chordata - Chordates
»» Subphylum: Vertebrata - Vertebrates
»» Class: Reptilia - Reptiles
»» Order: Squamata - Scaled Reptiles
»» Suborder: Serpentes
»» Superfamily: Colubroidea
»» Family: Colubridae - Colubrids
»» Genus: Virgnia
»» Species: Virgnia valeriae - Smooth Earth Snakes
»» Subspecies: Virgnia valeriae valeriae - Eastern Earth Snake
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Smooth Earth Snake", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0. Content may have been omitted from the original, but no content has been changed or extended.
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