Probably a gopher snake.

Here is a link that might be useful: gopher snake

i would guess Pituophis catenifer. they'll bite if provoked, but aren't venemous--they really put up a show when scared: vibrating their tail tip (here, against dry grass so it sounds like a rattler) and hissing. a good identifier is the black mask between their eyes (like a raccoon).

-ming

Wow - I wouldn't have stuck around long enough to figure out that he didn't have a rattle!!!!! Sheesh!!!

Well, I couldn't very well just leave him there, PC. He was 3 inches from my patio! Besides my cats would have gotten after him eventually and maybe hurt him. They were quite fascinated by the hissing. Anyway, I put the cats in the house and went to fetch my neighbor, a notorious snake handler... when we got back to my house, the snake had moved out of the lantana and across the flat yard so I could see how big he was and that he was no threat (i.e. not a rattlesnake). He has a little burrow under the pool house where he lives happily keeping the rat population in check.

I love the desert.

I think Ming and Judy are correct, gopher snake. Named him Billy Bob.

Di

What a beauty. AKA "Bull" snake. Their hot-temperment and aggression combined with their hissing "rattle" makes them worthy of an Oscar. Largest one I ever saw was over 7'. I think their disposition makes them much more likely to strike when disturbed than a rattler. They're powerful, and combined with their teeth can inflict a very painful bite on humans, resulting in the need for bandaging and a tetanus shot. If there's a chance little ones might have access to yard, this is one best moved to a location where she's unlikely to be disturbed. Cats are unlikely to bother one again if they're ever on the receiving end of its pearly whites. :)

Yep, we also call them King snakes. They are pretty abundant here in the desert and can get quite large. I agree with RdRnnr - they can bite - but I've been close to quite a few and never had any hiss or threaten with the tail as described. Years ago we had freerange chickens and one time we found a big one coiled up in one of the nest boxes. When DH went to remove him, he struck and bite. Luckily DH had his suede work gloves on. That's our only experience with aggression though, after the snake was approached to be picked up.

They do keep the rat populatation down and so are quite valuable here.

I'm very glad someone with a level head had the situation under control.... I would've done something dumb like called the cops or something else equally useless...

>smile

That's funny, PC.

Kathleen, it's good that he at least knew it was in there...could imagine the trauma factor would have been tenfold if not, lol. (The local kings snakes I'm familiar with are the striped ones...yellow, red, black & black and cream, with mellow dispositions. Those dine on rattlers.)

When my son was a small child he accidentally ran up on a 6' bull snake that knocked him down when he bit him. Poor little guy had teeth wounds on both sides of his thigh. We moved the snake to another area where I'm sure he lived out the rest of his days without having to deal with scary humans, lol.

DD, yours sounds like she has a nice place to live. :)

Wow RdRnnr what a story about your son, poor tyke! You're right, I'm sure we would have freaked out if we hadn't known it was "just a King/Bull snake" when DH got that bite to the glove. I think he was raiding our eggs for quite some time and finally just decided to lay in the nest and wait for another snack!

Are King and Bull/Gopher snakes different species? I didn't realize. The ones we have look so much like rattlers in their markings and colorations and I always thought King/Bull/Gopher were interchangeable names for the same species. Have to go back to my Audoban Desert guide and look again....

Answering my own post: I just took a further look at that dandy link Judy provided and indeed, the King is separate from the Gopher, looking a lot different. I guess we have Gopher snakes as we don't have any that look as striped as the King snake in that reference.

that's the trouble with common names...

king snake, as i know it, is Lampropeltis getula. another non-venemous.

i used to do herpetology field work, and part of it was outreach to the public. we mostly dealt with garter snakes, which had a host of common names, too.

-ming

Goodness, Ming, too bad you weren't here when Usha had the little snakes on her patio! I wonder if her friends ever caught them and relocated them....

FWIW... "king snake" refers generically to anything in the genus Lampropeltis (i.e., Arizona mountain king snakes (Lampropeltis pyromelana), desert king snakes (Lampropeltis getula splendida), prairie king snakes (Lampropeltis calligaster), etc.). The genus Lampropeltis also includes milk snakes (various forms of Lampropeltis triangulum).

"Gopher snake" usually refers to all of the western US forms of Pituophis catenifer except the "bull snake", Pituophis catenifer sayi, which doesn't occur in Arizona. This snake is a Sonoran gopher snake, Pituophis catenifer affinis.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Patrick Alexander