“Well I’m a crawlin’ kingsnake

And I rule my den”

— “Crawling Kingsnake,” John Lee Hooker (and The Doors & others)

Even among people who don’t like snakes, kingsnakes get a certain respect and even liking. They are able to eat rattlesnakes and have considerable immunity to the venom, and some people assume that the kingsnake prefers to hunt them down. Most people recognize that the kingsnake is not venomous, and so they may grudgingly call it a “good” snake.

Kingsnakes constitute a big group, found across the U.S. from coast to coast. They are medium-sized to fairly big snakes with muscular bodies and relatively small heads. Here in Texas you can find the speckled kingsnake, the desert kingsnake, and the prairie kingsnake.

A fully grown speckled kingsnake may be three or four feet in length, but a few individuals reach greater lengths. Speckled kingsnakes are black or very dark brown with yellow to cream-colored speckles down their backs. As you travel across Texas from east to west, the speckled pattern gradually shades into the desert kingsnake’s pattern in which a series of dark blotches runs down the snake’s back. Those blotches interrupt the otherwise speckled pattern of the desert kingsnake. The scales are smooth and often give the snake a glossy appearance.

On the belly, the scales of speckled and desert kingsnakes may be yellow with black blotches or (especially in desert kingsnakes) mostly black with some areas of yellow.

Where are they found?

Speckled kingsnakes often choose habitat that is near water and has plenty of low vegetation and ground cover. Along the upper Texas coast, speckled kingsnakes may live in coastal prairie and on barrier islands near marshes, according to Werler & Dixon. In other parts of east and central Texas, they may be found in woodlands, prairies, and old fields as well as in the vicinity of marshes and other wetlands. In Arkansas, Plummer studied a population in an area that included irrigation ditches and levees, bottomland forest, and agricultural fields. The snakes mostly used shrubby areas on the levees and did not make use of agricultural areas. The kingsnakes were radio-tracked and when found they were usually concealed or underground (such as in an old mammal burrow).

What do they eat?

Speckled kingsnakes make use of a wide variety of prey, including small mammals, lizards and other snakes, frogs, reptile eggs, and the occasional bird. The kingsnake bites the prey to get hold of it and then wraps several coils around the animal’s body. Kingsnakes are powerful constrictors, and the pressure of those coils kills not just by making breathing impossible but apparently also by stopping circulation. Researchers studying boa constrictors found that constriction quickly and dramatically reduced blood flow and heart rate.

In at least one study, mice were the principal prey, but these kingsnakes are able to subdue and eat our native venomous snakes as well as nonvenomous ones. A snake that is as long as the kingsnake is swallowed and becomes kinked or folded in order to fit in the kingsnake’s lengthy stomach.

Other reports show that kingsnakes in this group are very fond of turtle eggs and have even been observed watching and waiting while a female turtle laid eggs (reported in Werler & Dixon).

How do they defend themselves?

These snakes cannot make an especially fast escape and they have no venom and only small, recurved teeth. Their best defense is to avoid being seen, and most of their time in spent concealed in low vegetation and leaf litter, under tree stumps or flat rocks, or underground. These places not only offer concealment, they are great places for them to look for prey. As temperature increases, speckled kingsnakes become more nocturnal.

If confronted or captured, however, speckled kingsnakes often pull back in a striking position and will bite, often hanging on and chewing with strong jaws. If grabbed, the snake thrashes and expels feces as well as a bad-smelling musk, making it an unpleasant experience for a human captor and maybe taking away from the appeal of the snake as a meal for a raccoon or coyote. It must be emphasized that for a human who discovers a speckled kingsnake and simply observes it, there is no danger whatsoever.

How are they related to other kingsnakes?

For years, speckled kingsnakes were part of a group called “common kingsnakes” that ranged across the southern U.S. from coast to coast. They are generally dark snakes with some sort of pattern – for example, black and white bands or stripes in California, the speckles of the desert and speckled kingsnakes, and a light chain-like pattern along the east coast. The snake was scientifically known as Lampropeltis getula, with different subspecies. The speckled subspecies was (or is) Lampropeltis getula holbrooki.

In recent years, researchers using genetic analysis proposed that these snakes are not all one species, and only the most eastern form is the species getula. The speckled kingsnake was said to be its own species, Lampropeltis holbrooki. The desert kingsnake is L. splendida.

Most readers will not want to go into the biology and genetics of these decisions, but let’s just say that not all biologists agree, and have pointed out flaws in the methodology used to split these snakes into their own species (such as relying too much on mitochondrial DNA rather than nuclear DNA and failing to consider how they are not reproductively distinct – where their ranges meet, they breed and produce intermediate forms). If you are interested, read the 2020 paper by David Hillis.

How do they reproduce?

When male speckled kingsnakes search for females in the spring, they may engage in combat with other males. It is termed “combat” but it really does not result in harm to either snake; it is more like wrestling in which the dominant snake forces his opponent’s upper body to the ground. Kingsnakes mate in spring and females lay a clutch of eggs in early summer. Werler & Dixon report that there may be 2 to 17 eggs, laid in a moist location such as within rotting vegetation or in an abandoned burrow. Within 2 to 2.5 months, the eggs hatch. The babies are a little under a foot long and the speckles are initially fused across the back into squiggly crossbars.

What conservation problems do they face?

NatureServe rates the speckled kingsnake as “secure” in Texas. While habitat loss may reduce some populations, overall there are no major threats listed.

It is worth adding that as a group, our reptiles and amphibians are in serious trouble, with some species in greater decline than others. Several factors are serious threats to both reptiles and amphibians: habitat loss, pollution, climate change, invasive species, overcollection, and disease or parasitism, as described by Gibbons, et al.

---

Boback, S.M., McCann, K.J., Wood, K.A., McNeal, P.M., Blankenship, E.L., & C.F. Zwemer. 2015. Snake constriction rapidly induces circulatory arrest in rats. Journal of Experimental Biology, 218(14), 2279-2288.

Hillis, D.M. 2020. The detection and naming of geographic variation within species. Herpetological Review, 51(1), 52-56.

NatureServe Explorer. Speckled Kingsnake. https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.1006745/Lampropeltis_holbrooki (accessed 3/24/24)

Plummer, M.V. 2010. Habitat Use and Movements of Kingsnakes (Lampropeltis getula holbrooki) in a Partially Abandoned and Reforested Agricultural Landscape. Herpetological Conservation and Biology 5(2), 214-222.

Werler, J.E. & J.R. Dixon. 2000. Texas Snakes: Identification, Distribution, and Natural History. Austin: University of Texas Press.