Adult color (left) and view of belly (right).
Kenneth L. Krysko photos.

Scientific name: Rhadinaea flavilata

Description: Average adult size is 10-12 inches (25.4-30.4 cm), record is 15.75 inches (40 cm). Adults are small, slender, and yellowish-brown to reddish. The lips are whitish-yellow, and there is a thin dark line that runs through the eye to the corner of the jaw. The belly is uniform whitish-yellow. The scales are smooth and there are 17 dorsal scale rows at midbody. The pupil is round. Juvenile coloration is similar to that of adults.

Pine woods snake: Left to right: Top of the head (notice the large plate-like scales on the top of the head);
underside of the head (chin and throat).

Pine woods snake: Left to right: Side of the head; front (face view) of the head.

Range: In Florida, it is found throughout most of the peninsula south to around Lake Okeechobee, and in isolated populations in the central panhandle. Outside of Florida, it is found in isolated populations along the coastal plain from North Carolina to eastern Louisiana.

Habitat: Uncommon, found in pinelands, hardwood hammocks, cypress strands, bayheads, and occasionally on barrier islands.

Comments: . It does not bite when picked up. It has fangs in the rear of its mouth which are used to subdue its prey, primarily small lizards, salamanders, frogs, snakes, and insects.

The pine woods snake is a terrestrial burrower. It is occasionally found under rotting logs and leaves, but most often under the bark of dead pine trees. However, pine woods snakes turn up in areas where pine flatwoods habitat has been lost to urban development and all that remains is slash pines scattered among the houses. They even have been found under the pine straw that accumulates on the roofs of houses in southwest peninsular Florida.

It lays small clutches of eggs, 5 inch (12.7 cm) long young hatch in the summer months.

Comparison with other species: The brown snakes (Storeria dekayi), redbelly snake (Storeria occipitomaculata), rough earth snake (Virginia striatula), and smooth earth snake (Virginia valeriae) lack together a thin black stripe through the eye and the yellowish lips.

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