Squamata suborder Serpentes
Storeria occipitomaculata -- Redbellied Snake
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Purple shade indicates vouchered specimens. Light blue (cyan)
shade indicates photographic records. Yellow shade indicates verified
sighting. Slanted hatch indicates pre-1980 records only
NOTE: Not all specimens upon which these maps are based have been verified.
Key Characters: Three light spots just behind the head; plain red belly; two preocular scales; back scales strongly keeled and in 15 rows; anal plate divided.
Similar Species: Brown snake, smooth earth snake, Kirtland's snake.
Subspecies: Northern redbelly snake, S. o. occipitomaculata.
Description: Small (up to 35 cm TL), slender black, gray, or light brown snake. Sometimes a faint midback stripe and usually a light blotch on the fifth supralabial scale. Belly varies from deep red to pale orange.
Habitat: Forests and moist woods, occasionally in pastures, bogs, and wet meadows, even in predominantly prairie counties.
Natural History: Active at ground level (during the day in spring and autumn, during night or twilight hours in summer), under rocks and logs, in rotting logs, and in piles of leaves; occasionally climbs into low shrubs. Emerges from hibernation in soil, gravel, rock crevices, etc., in March (during warm springs) and remains active into November. Mates May to September and 5-25 young (ca. 5-10 cm TL) are born August through early September. Earthworms and slugs make up most of the diet. Predators include snakes, birds, mammals, even large fish and frogs. Large numbers are killed on roads during spring and autumn as they move to and from upland hibernacula.
Status: Locally abundant, even in forested moraines of the Chicago region.