Brown Snake 40D0029124

Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi)

The Brown Snake is a small species of colubrid snake native to most of the eastern half of the United States, through Mexico and into Central America. The epithet dekayi is in honor of Portuguese-American zoologist James Ellsworth Dekay who collected the first specimen in Long Island, New York.

The genus Storeria consists of four species, three of which are known as brown snakes, and the other is known as the redbelly snake. They are found primarily in the United States and Mexico but range as far north as southern Canada, and as far south as Central America.

As their common name implies, most snakes of the genus Storeria are a variant of brown in color. The brown can vary depending on locale, to be almost a brick red in color, to nearly black. They sometimes have a lighter colored stripe down the center of the back, and small black blotches along the body, and just behind the head. Their underside is usually lighter brown colored, yellow, or in the case of redbelly snakes, reddish in color. They rarely grow beyond 12 inches in length. One of the best means of identification is by its scales, which are keeled. On the head there is no loreal scale and the postnasal scale touches the preocular scale. So, there are only two scales between the nasal opening and the eye.

More info: [link]

Featured by the talented :devfoowaho: in her article "Brown Animals": [link] .