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Annulated Snake
- Colouration
- Greenish-gray or yellowish above with large, black or brown blotches--six or eight scales long and extending downward nearly to the edges of the abdominal plates. Abdomen yellowish.
- Dimensions
- Total length, 30 inches; tail about one-fifth the total length. The head is fully twice as wide as the diameter of the neck.
- Distribution
- Southern portions of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Mexico generally and southward to Panama.
- Habits
- A captive specimen, now living for several years, is persistently secretive, though it feeds readily. It spends most of the time in hiding under a flat stone in the cage or in a hollow it scoops in the gravel beneath the drinking pan. About the food, it is not particular, eating snakes, lizards, young mice and frogs. Among these creatures it takes the young snakes and frogs most readily. The species seems to be oviparous, as this snake laid a dozen eggs a few days after her arrival. They were deposited in a hollow she had scooped in the sand, under a flat stone.
Size moderate; body rather slender, the tail gradually tapering to a slender tip. Head very broad and distinct from neck; swollen at the temples. Eyes large, with elliptical pupil. Ventral plate divided--like the preceding species.
Across the rear part of the head is an obscure, pale band.
The Genus Erythrolamprus: The species are smaller than those of the preceding genera; the body is rather slender and the head but slightly distinct. Eyes with a round pupil.
Six species are recognised. With the exception of one, they are confined to Mexico and Central America.