Pituophis Explained

Pituophis is a genus of nonvenomous colubrid snakes, commonly referred to as gopher snakes, pine snakes, and bullsnakes, which are endemic to North America. They are often yellow or cream in color with dark spots and a dark line across their face. Some species can exceed seven feet in length. Gopher snakes can live for 15 years. The gopher snake is commonly misidentified as a rattlesnake because of its similar coloration and its defensive behavior when feeling threatened. A scared gopher snake will flatten its head, hiss loudly, and shake its tail rapidly, doing a very convincing rattlesnake imitation.

Nomenclature

The genus name Pituophis is a Latinized modern scientific Greek compound Πιτυόφις : "pine snake"; from grc|πίτυς (pítus, "pine"), and grc|ὄφις (óphis, "snake").

Geographic range

Species and subspecies within the genus Pituophis are found throughout Mexico, the Southern and Western United States and Western Canada.^[1]

Description

All species of Pituophis are large and powerfully built. The head is relatively small in proportion to the body and it is only slightly distinct from the neck. The rostral is enlarged and elongated, imparting a characteristic somewhat pointed shape to the head. All the species occurring in the United States have four prefrontals instead of the usual two.^[1]

Modified epiglottis

In all snakes of the genus Pituophis, the epiglottis is peculiarly modified so that it is thin, erect and flexible. When a stream of air is forced from the trachea, the epiglottis vibrates, thereby producing the peculiarly loud, hoarse hissing for which bullsnakes, gopher snakes, and pine snakes are well known.^[2]

Species and subspecies

Scientific name	Common name	Subspecies	Distribution
Pituophis catenifer	gopher snake	P. c. affinis – Sonoran gopher snake P. c. annectens – San Diego gopher snake P. c. bimaris – central Baja California gopher snake P. c. catenifer – Pacific gopher snake P. c. coronalis – Coronado Island gopher snake P. c. deserticola – Great Basin gopher snake P. c. fulginatus – San Martin Island gopher snake P. c. pumilis – Santa Cruz Island gopher snake^[3] P. c. sayi – bullsnake	North America
Pituophis deppei	Mexican bullsnake	P. d. deppei – southern Mexican pine snake P. d. jani – northern Mexican pine snake	central, Mexico
Pituophis insulanus	Cedros Island gopher snake		Isla de Cedros, Mexico
Pituophis lineaticollis	Middle American gopher snake	P. l. gibsoni P. l. lineaticollis	From Mexico city, south through Mexico and to Guatemala
Pituophis melanoleucus	pine snake	P. m. lodingi – black pine snake P. m. melanoleucus – northern pine snake P. m. mugitus – Florida pine snake	southeastern United States
Pituophis ruthveni	Louisiana pine snake		west-central Louisiana and East Texas
Pituophis vertebralis	Cape gopher snake		southern Baja California Sur, Mexico.

External links

- Accounts of four subspecies, P. deppei deppei, P. deppei jani, P. lineaticollis lineaticollis and P. lineaticollis gibsoni, are given in Duellman WE (1960). "A Taxonomic Study of the Middle American Snake, Pituophis deppei ". University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History 10: 599–610.

Notes and References

[Roger Conant (herpetologist)|Conant R]
[Karl Patterson Schmidt|Schmidt KP]
Web site: Santa Cruz Island Gopher Snake - Channel Islands National Park (U.S. National Park Service).