Pine Woods Litter Snake (Rhadinaea flavilata)
Description: Pine woods snakes average between 10 and 13 inches in total length (including tail) at adult size. R. flavilata is a small reddish brown to yellowish brown or dark orange snake with a whitish to yellowish, unmarked underside. A dark stripe runs through the eye. A light stripe may be present along the middle of the back. The upper labial scales (lip scales) are a whitish or pale yellow color which led to its other common name, the yellow-lipped snake.
Habitat: The pine snake inhabits pine and mixed-pine hardwood forests. They can be found in damp woodlands, under bark and in rotten logs and stumps.
Range: R. flavilata is found in scattered localities in coastal North Carolina and South Carolina, most of peninsular Florida, and small portions of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The species has a scattered geographic distribution with large expanses occurring between known populations.
Diet: There is little information about the diet of the R. flavilata. Captive species prey on small frogs, salamanders and small lizards.
Reproduction: Pine woods snakes lay eggs. There is little know information about reproduction. Mating probably occurs in the spring and one to four eggs are laid during the summer months. Some females lay two clutches of eggs each year. The incubation period is six to eight weeks.
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.
»» Kingdom: Animalia - Animals
»» Phylum: Chordata - Chordates
»» Subphylum: Vertebrata - Vertebrates
»» Class: Reptilia - Reptiles
»» Order: Squamata - Scaled Reptiles
»» Suborder: Serpentes
»» Superfamily: Colubroidea
  »» Family: Colubridae - Colubrids
»» Genus: Rhadinaea
»» Species: Rhadinaea flavilata - Pine Woods Litter Snake
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Pine woods 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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