Pantherophis emoryi

Pantherophis emoryi, commonly known as the Great Plains rat snake, is a species of nonvenomous rat snake in the family Colubridae. The species is native to the central part of the United States, from Missouri to Nebraska, to Colorado, south to Texas, and into northern Mexico.

Pantherophis emoryi
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Suborder: Serpentes
Family: Colubridae
Genus: Pantherophis
Species:
P. emoryi
Binomial name
Pantherophis emoryi
(Baird & Girard, 1853)
Synonyms[2]

Etymology

The epithet, emoryi, is in honor of Brigadier General William Hemsley Emory, who was chief surveyor of the U.S. Boundary Survey team of 1852 and collected specimens for the Smithsonian Institution.[3] As such, it is sometimes referred to as Emory's rat snake.

Common names

Additional common names for Pantherophis emoryi include the following: brown rat snake, chicken snake, eastern spotted snake, Emory's Coluber, Emory's pilot snake, Emory's racer, Emory's snake, gray rat snake, mouse snake, prairie rat snake, spotted mouse snake, Texas rat snake, and western pilot snake.[4]

Description

The Great Plains rat snake is typically light gray or tan in color, with dark gray, brown, or green-gray blotching down its back, and stripes on either side of the head which meet to form a point between the eyes. It is capable of growing to 3–5 feet (0.91–1.52 m) in total length (including tail).

Habitat and behavior

The Great Plains rat snake prefers open grassland or lightly forested habitats, but is also found on coastal plains, semi-arid regions, as well as rocky, moderately mountainous regions. It can often be found on farmland, which often leads to its being erroneously called a chicken snake, and other areas with a relatively high rodent population, which is its primary diet. It will also eat birds, and occasionally snakes, lizards and frogs, all of which it subdues by constriction. It is primarily nocturnal, and oviparous, laying clutches of as many as 25 eggs in the late spring. Like most rat snakes, when agitated, the Great Plains rat snake will shake its tail vigorously, which by itself makes no noise, but when it shakes among dry leaf litter, it can sound remarkably like a rattlesnake, and often leads to misidentification. The Great Plains rat snake tends to remain still for a majority of its time awake, which is odd for a nocturnal being. On average, the Great Plains rat snake only moves 188 m (617 ft) per day. The yellow-bellied racer (Coluber constrictor flaviventris), a snake that often lives in the same habitat, moves more often than the Great Plains rat snake, which could lead to a decline in the Great Plains rat snake's population as it is not as mobile.[5]

Warning signs of agitation are curling up tightly and shaking its tail rapidly. Though P. emoryi has very small teeth and is nonvenomous, it will bite. However, as a whole, this species of snake is very calm and non-aggressive.

Taxonomy

This species, Pantherophis emoryi, has undergone extensive reclassification since it was first described by Spencer Fullerton Baird and Charles Frédéric Girard in 1853 as Scotophis emoryi. It has often been placed in the genus Elaphe, but phylogenetic analyses performed in the 2000s have resulted in its transfer to Pantherophis.[6][7][8]

P. emoryi has been elevated to full species status and downgraded to a subspecies of P. guttatus multiple times. Most recently, Burbrink suggested that P. guttatus be split into three species: P. guttatus, P. emoryi, and P. slowinskii.[9]

The most recent taxonomic paper on this species complex refutes Burbrink's species suggestions based on more comprehensive sampling and genetic work. "Our data support a revision of the taxonomy of this group, and we recognize two species within the complex and three subspecies within P. emoryi. This study illustrates the importance of thorough sampling of contact zones and consideration of gene flow when delimiting species in widespread complexes containing parapatric lineages."[10]

References
  1. Hammerson GA (2007). "Pantherophis emoryi ". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2007: e.T63861A12723067. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2007.RLTS.T63861A12723067.en. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  2. Pantherophis emoryi at the Reptarium.cz Reptile Database. Accessed 29 March 2021.
  3. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. (Pantherophis emoryi, pp. 83-84).
  4. Wright AH, Wright AA (1957). Handbook of Snakes of the United States and Canada. Ithaca and London: Comstock. 1,105 pp. (in 2 volumes) (Elaphe emoryi emoryi, pp. 218-223, Figure 68, Map 23).
  5. Klug, Page E.; Fill, Jennifer; With, Kimberly A. (2011). "Spatial ecology of eastern yellow-bellied racer (Coluber constrictor flaviventris) and Great Plains rat snake (Pantherophis emoryi) in a contiguous tallgrass-prairie landscape". Herpetologica. 67 (4): 428–439. doi:10.1655/HERPETOLOGICA-D-10-00076.1. S2CID 3065840.
  6. Utiger, Urs; Helfenberger, Notker; Schätti, Beat; Schmidt, Catherine; Ruf, Markus; Ziswiler, Vincent (2002). "Molecular systematics and phylogeny of Old and New World ratsnakes, Elaphe Auct., and related genera (Reptilia, Squamata, Colubridae)". Russian Journal of Herpetology. 9 (2): 105–124. doi:10.30906/1026-2296-2002-9-2-105-124 (inactive 1 August 2023).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of August 2023 (link)
  7. Burbrink, Frank T.; Lawson, Robin (2007). "How and when did Old World ratsnakes disperse into the New World?". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 43 (1): 173–189. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2006.09.009. PMID 17113316.
  8. Pyron, R. Alexander; Burbrink, Frank T. (2009). "Neogene diversification and taxonomic stability in the snake tribe Lampropeltini (Serpentes: Colubridae)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 52 (2): 524–529. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2009.02.008. PMID 19236930.
  9. Burbrink F (2002). "Phylogeographic analysis of the cornsnake (Elaphe guttata) complex as inferred from maximum likelihood and Bayesian analyses". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 25 (3): 465–476. doi:10.1016/S1055-7903(02)00306-8. PMID 12450751.
  10. Marshall, Thomas L.; Chambers, E. Anne; Matz, Mikhail V.; Hillis, David M. (September 2021). "How mitonuclear discordance and geographic variation have confounded species boundaries in a widely studied snake". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 162: 107194. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2021.107194. PMID 33940060.

Further reading
  • Baird SF, Girard CF (1853). Catalogue of North American Reptiles in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Part I.—Serpents. Washington, District of Columbia: Smithsonian Institution. xvi + 172 pp. (Scotophis emoryi, new species, pp. 157–158).
  • Behler JL, King FW (1979). The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Retiles and Amphibians. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 743 pp. ISBN 0-394-50824-6. (Elaphe guttata emoryi, p. 605).
  • Conant R (1975). A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America, Second Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. xviii + 429 pp. + Plates 1-48. ISBN 0-395-19979-4 (hardcover), ISBN 0-395-19977-8 (paperback). (Elaphe guttata emoryi, pp. 191–192, Figures 43-44 + Pl 28 + Map 150).
  • Powell R, Conant R, Collins JT (2016). Peterson Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America, Fourth Edition. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. xiv + 494 pp., 47 color plates, 207 figures. ISBN 978-0-544-12997-9. (Pantherophis emoryi, p. 387 + Plate 36 + Figures 161, 180).
  • Smith HM, Brodie ED Jr (1982). Reptiles of North America: A Guide to Field Identification. New York: Golden Press. 240 pp. ISBN 0-307-13666-3. (Elaphe guttata emoryi, pp. 184–185).
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