San Diego Gopher Snake

The San Diego gopher snake is a subspecies of gopher snake with one of the smallest distributions. It is found only in the southern portion of Southern California and down into Baja California. One of the characteristics of this subspecies is that the front dorsal blotches are black and all of the dorsal blotches are more or less connected to each other. The four foot snake below was caught in Redlands.

It is compared with a much smaller gopher snake next to it.

We have seen many gopher snakes over the years. The one below was actually captured by Judy while she and Rachael were driving somewhere one day. As you can see, Judy was quite proud of herself for capturing this large snake.

Gopher snakes are often mistaken for rattlesnakes because when threatened, they will often shake their tail, like a rattlesnake, and the blotches on their backs are fairly similar to some types of rattlesnake. We got a call from Julee Brice one Sunday afternoon saying she had a rattlesnake in her yard that was hissing at her. We went down to her home and found a large, mean gopher snake which we captured. Andrew and Sam hold the captured snake. Note, Andrew is carefully holding the head. Most gopher snakes I've found have been mellow, but this one was very mean.

The gopher snake below was caught by some boys at a Father's and Son's Outing at the Live Oak Canyon Tree Farm in Yucaipa. Note the spots on the belly.

The same snake, held by a different boy. Note the lack of black stripe between and behind the eyes (see the gopher snake in the Great Basin gopher snake blog).

By comparison, Andrew holds the gopher snake we captured at the Brice's, only about a mile away from the Tree Farm, and it lacks the significant under marking.

Gopher snakes are constrictors and love to curl around necks, arms and other objects. Below, Rachael with one around her neck.

I have one around my arm. The angle allows you to see the very significant difference in the circumference of the snake from the head to the mid-body.

The same snake, again revealing the lack of underside markings and lack of black lines between and behind the eyes.

We had a pet San Diego gopher snake for 7 years, named by Sam as "Snake Eyes." Sam and I found it in the gutter one November Sunday afternoon on our street. Below, the young Snake Eyes begins to eat a small mouse.

As Snake Eyes got older and larger, he graduated to rats. Below, Snake Eyes devours a rat.

The hind legs of the rat get ready to disappear into the snake.

Most gopher snakes make great pets. They are usually mellow, they eat well and they are fun because of their propensity to wrap around an arm or a neck.

Great Basin Gopher Snake

The Great Basin gopher snake is found in the north part of Southern California, all of Nevada and Utah, and portions of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. The gopher snake, below, was found in the White Mountains above Big Pine, California in August 1993 at about 6,500 feet of elevation. I think it is the most colorful gopher snake I've ever seen.

In the Great Basin subspecies of gopher snake, the dorsal blotches near the front of the body are usually black and connected to each other, as in this one. By contrast, the Sonoran gopher snake generally has brown dorsal blotches near the front that are not connected to each other.

It is yellow, or cream colored and has black, brown or reddish brown dorsal blotches. Some have reddish orange in the interspaces between the blotches, like this one.

They are powerful constrictors and are one of the most commonly seen snakes.

They usually have a dark line across the head in front of the eyes and from behind the eye to the angle of the jaw. The closeup of the head below illustrates those dark lines.

The next three pictures illustrate the color variations in this one snake. The first picture is of the front of the body. The dorsal blotches are black and are connected to each other. There are also black, unconnected, horizontal side blotches.

The mid portion of the snake has brown, unconnected, dorsal blotches and brown, unconnected, vertical side blotches.

Finally, the tail has black, unconnected, doral blotches with reddish orange coloring in the interspaces and irregular shaped, unconnected, side blotches.

California Kingsnake

The California kingsnake is a subspecies of the common kingsnake and is found in all but some small portions of California, the southern half of Nevada, a small portion of southern Utah, all of Arizona, except for eastern Arizona, a small piece of southern Oregon, and a ways into Mexico. Hatchlings are about 12 inches long and adults can get to about four feet long. The first time I saw California kingsnakes I saw three in short order. We were with a group of youth on the Havasupai Indian Reservation in northern Arizona staying at the Havasu Campground in early September 1992. The first snake we saw, below, was near Havasu Falls. It was a beautiful glossy black and white which was very distinctive in the green grass near the falls.

All three snakes we found looked very similar, with dark black and white stripes.
The next kingsnake we found was in the Havasu Campground, see below. Each one had a small white dot on the head.

This one had stripes that connected on the underside through the belly, but at least one did not have connecting stripes.

The third kingsnake we found was about a half mile up Havasu Creek from where it empties into the Colorado River. This was my first trip to Havasupai and I've been back about four times and never seen another kingsnake there.

They are widely variable in appearance, although the ones I've seen have been consistently of two types. The northern Arizona version which is very glossy black and white, and the Redlands

area version which has more choclately brown and yellow stripes. Our local snakes do seem to vary in terms of how dark their dark stripes are and they also are not as glossy as the Arizona versions. The kingsnake below was caught in Redlands.

The next kingsnake was captured up Whitewater Canyon and has distinctive yellow bands and three marks on the top of the head.

The next kingsnake was a pet for awhile, named "Tide" after the laundry detergent, because Judy found the snake one evening in the warm sheets she'd taken from the dryer. She initially thought it was a fake plastic snake of the boys and let out a shreik when she realized it was alive.

We've found a number of kingsnakes over the years, from inside our house, to our neighbors yards, to Overcrest Street on the way to Church. I've found them to be voracious eaters, about the complete opposite of the long-nosed snakes I have never been able to get to eat. Here a kingsnake eats an alligator lizard.

This kingsnake is eating a shovel-nosed snake. It got it all the way down and then threw it up.

This kingsnake is eating a glossy snake. The kingsnake is immune to rattlesnake venom and I've seen pictures of several different kingsnakes eating rattlesnakes.

There are California kingsnakes that have stripes and weirdly contorted markings that are very unusual. Here is a link to some pictures. The next picture is of a kingsnake in the canyon behind our home.

The ease with which they eat and their generally mellow nature (although I have seen several that were pretty nasty, attempting to bite) make them popular pets.

In May 2011 I was taking some trash out to our garbage can in the evening and found a good sized king snake

in our driveway, next to our garage door. It was shaking its tail in a fake rattle, like a rattlesnake, something I've seen gopher snakes do before, but not something I recall king snakes doing. 

I kept it for a couple of weeks, took it to our fathers and sons outing and let the little boys hold it, 

then let it go in our yard on a Saturday afternoon. When I let it go, it got in a defensive posture, 

and fake-rattled again, raising its head as if to strike, 

although it never did strike. 

Side-Blotched Lizard

The side-blotched lizard is scattered widely in the west, including all of Southern California, Baja California, most of Nevada, three-fourths of Arizona, large portions of Utah and into Oregon, Washington, Idaho, New Mexico and Texas. A small, often brownish lizard with with a bluish black blotch behind the forelimb. Sometimes the blotch is faint or missing. The ground color is brown, gray or yellowish and blotched, speckled or sometimes unpatterned. Sometimes they have orange or reddish orange on the throat and sides of the belly. The lizard below was photographed in Joshua Tree National Park near the Belle Campground.

A closer view of the back which shows some brownish stripes.

A side-blotched lizard with a very different look. It is the most common lizard in the desert and semi-arrid regions. It can be active all year round in the southern deserts when the temperature is warm. It lives only about a year. It is very variable and there are likely three subspecies in California that will be delineated in the future.

A closer look at the back pattern.

On April 3, 2010, I was with Andrew and Lauren near the Cottonwood entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. The side-blotched lizards were numerous. The first one was photographed at the pullout on the bajada and nature trail near the park entrance.

The second was photographed near the Cottonwood grove of fan palms.

A closeup of the markings on the back.

Great Basin Fence Lizard

The Great Basin fence lizard is a subspecies of the western fence lizard. It is found along the coast and in the lower vegetation belts of the mountains of Southern California up into Santa Barbara County, northeastern California, most of Nevada, except for the southern tip, a portion of western Utah, the eastern two-thirds of Oregon, the southeastern tip of Washington and a large portion of western and southern Idaho. It has keeled and pointed dorsal scales, larger than the sagebrush lizard, but smaller than the spiny lizard. It is black, gray or brown with a blotched pattern. The sides of the belly of the male are blue, they have a blue patch on the throat and some scales on the back become blue or greenish when in the light phase. The female has faint or absent blue markings. The underneath surface of the rear limbs are yellow or orange. The fence lizard below is dark with distinctive greenish blue scales.

A closer view of the scales that are more keeled than on the sagebrush lizard, but less keeled than the spiny lizard.

The fence lizard below we had as a pet in a terrarium for awhile.