Description: This subspecies exhibits many colors and patterns and can be gray, green, or tan with darker banding or may even be solid reddish orange or straw yellow. It is also known to intergrade with all other types of salt marsh snake, complicating the identification process. There are two primary forms: a gray-green color morph, and an orange variant. The gray-green variant has a dark crossbanded olive gray dorsum (some individuals that exhibit this color scheme have partial lateral striping on the forebody) with a clouded, gray-green venter. Adults of the orange phase, on the other hand, have an unmarked orangish back and sides; juveniles of this phase are orange with dark dorsal crossbands. All orange snakes in this subspecies exhibit a pale yellow venter, regardless of age.

Habitat: Within this range, N. c. compressicauda primarily inhabits inundated estuary forests of buttonwood and red mangroves, so as to minimize competition with Florida's numerous freshwater natricines.

Range: The Mangrove salt marsh snake's native range of populations is in Florida, from Tampa Bay south to Miami and northward along the Atlantic coast to the vicinity of Cape Canaveral.

Found in these States: FL

Diet: Prey upon small fish, crabs, shrimp, and other invertebrates that become trapped in tidal pools during low tide.

Reproduction: All members of this species reproduce via live birth, ovovivparous.

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

Taxonomy: