This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have the reigning regent of our ropey reptiles, the Eastern Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula).
The Eastern Kingsnake ranges through the Mid-Atlantic States, from New Jersey through Florida, and in all of South Carolina. They’re found in a wide array of habitats but are most abundant in lands surrounding swamps and other waterbodies, where food is abundant. Unlike most of our southeastern snakes, Kingsnakes are primarily diurnal, rousing at daybreak and hunting throughout much of the day.
Kingsnakes are marked with a bold, bicolored pattern of jet-black divided by thin crosswise bands of ivory-white. These white bands interconnect with each other along their flanks to weave a net-like, reticulated pattern extending down over their belly. Their head is crowned with a smattering of white dots and dashes. Each snake has a unique head pattern, which can identify them like a name. They’re a striking, unmistakable, and handsome snake to behold. Kingsnakes are big and heavy to boot. They most often grow to three to four feet long but can exceed six feet in the wild. They’re strong constrictors and thus have a heavy, stout frame that hints at their muscled physique and big appetite.
Kingsnakes hunt a wide array of animals for food. Their diet is composed of mainly frogs, lizards, rodents, eggs, and snakes. Kingsnakes are renowned for their tolerance to viper venom, being essentially immune to the bites of Copperheads, Cottonmouths, and even Rattlesnakes. Kingsnakes lack any form of venom. Kingsnakes are harmless to humans, but not to their prey. Instead of toxic teeth they use their well-toned torso to constrict, strangle, and crush their prey before swallowing it whole. That includes venomous snakes nearly their same length! Vipers, despite being heavy and impressively large, are all bite and no might; they’re a glass cannon. Venom is their one and only defense and, if it fails, a viper is out of options. This is weakness of vipers is an ecological niche the Eastern Kingsnake has adapted to capitalize on, and the matchup couldn’t be worse for the viper. Like a black belt in jiu jitsu thrown into a bar fight, it takes a Kingsnake mere seconds to fold its opponent into an inescapable and incomprehensibly painful pretzel-like shape. Kingsnakes adhere to the age old adage of ‘might makes right’ and have been coronated the “King Snake” by early naturalists due to their uncontested position in the serpent pecking order.
But their reign is waning and their kingdom in tatters. Eastern Kingsnake populations have declined dramatically range-wide over the last few decades. The reasons behind this decline, despite coordinated research by multiple states, are worryingly unknown. The declines are even occuring in some of the most extensive and sheltered swaths of habitat on the landscape, implying the causes are subtle, diffuse, and inescapably chronic. Ubiquitous factors in the southeastern landscape like habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation, climatic instability, invasive species, pollution, and exotic diseases are assumed to all be playing a part in some way to the withering of Eastern Kingsnake populations. Kingsnakes, being a snake eater, are also particularly poised to be overexposed and sensitive to environmental conditions that impact snake populations. Kingsnakes are more intensively exposed to snake diseases and bio-accumulating pollutants, given they subsist on a diet of snakes. Their prey may be suffering with these ailments and pass those on to the hunter. You are what you eat after all. In parallel, if other snake populations decline, that means less food for the Kingsnakes and their populations must contract accordingly to remain stable. It’s a double whammy. However, this is all speculative conjecture on my part. The takeaway is that Eastern Kingsnakes are in a rough spot and they need our attention and care to ensure their continued prosperity and governance over the snakes of South Carolina.
