Corn Snake (Pantherophis guttatus): Wild Facts and Range

Appearance

A typical wild corn snake has an orange, tan or brownish-gray body with a row of large red or reddish-brown blotches down the back. Each blotch is edged in black, which makes the pattern stand out sharply. Smaller blotches run along the sides. On top of the head there is a distinctive spearpoint-shaped mark that points forward between the eyes, and a dark stripe runs from the eye back to the angle of the jaw.

The belly is one of the best identification features. It is white or pale yellow with irregular black squares arranged like a checkerboard, and toward the tail the black marks often merge into two stripes. That checkered underside is one of the two leading explanations for the name, discussed in Why is it called a corn snake?.

Color varies with region. Snakes from the Atlantic coastal plain of South Carolina, sometimes called the “Okeetee” type, are bright orange with deep red blotches and thick black borders. Snakes from southern Florida tend to be grayer with smaller red blotches, and many inland snakes are duller brown. The head is narrow and only slightly wider than the neck, the pupils are round, and the scales on the back are weakly keeled (they carry a faint ridge).

How big do corn snakes get?

Corn snakes are medium-sized snakes. They are long but slim, so even large adults are fairly light compared with heavy-bodied snakes such as rattlesnakes.

Males tend to grow slightly longer than females. Size also varies by place: snakes from southern Florida and the Florida Keys are generally smaller than those from the Carolinas and Virginia.

Habitat and range

The corn snake lives in the southeastern and south-central United States. Its range runs from the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey south through Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas to the tip of Florida and the Keys, and west through Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi to Louisiana. It is most common on the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains.

Within that range it uses a wide variety of habitats: pine flatwoods and sandhills, the edges of hardwood forests, overgrown fields, palmetto scrub, rocky hillsides and wooded ravines. It also does well around farms, where barns, sheds and old buildings shelter the rodents it eats. Corn snakes are found from sea level up to about 1,800 m (6,000 ft) in the southern Appalachians, but they are most common at lower elevations. More detail is in Where do corn snakes live?.

Escaped and released pet corn snakes have formed wild populations on some Caribbean islands, including Nevis, where they are an introduced species. In Australia the species is treated as a prohibited pest, and the authorities remove any snakes found there.

Diet and hunting

Corn snakes are carnivores and opportunists. In most of their range, more than half of an adult’s diet consists of small mammals, especially mice, rats, cotton rats and voles; they sometimes take moles as well. Young corn snakes eat many lizards, small frogs and tree frogs before they are large enough to tackle rodents. Adults also climb trees and shrubs to raid bird nests for eggs and nestlings. In southern Florida, where the snakes are smaller, reptiles and amphibians make up a larger share of the diet.

Corn snakes find prey mainly by scent, flicking the tongue to collect odor particles and passing them to the Jacobson’s organ in the roof of the mouth. They often hunt by poking into rodent burrows, crevices and leaf litter. Once a snake seizes an animal with its small, backward-curving teeth, it throws several coils around it and squeezes. Constriction does not crush bones; it stops the prey’s blood circulation within moments. The snake then swallows the animal whole, usually head first.

Because they kill without venom, corn snakes belong to the large group of nonvenomous constrictors, as explained in Are corn snakes venomous?.

Behavior and daily life

Corn snakes are secretive and spend much of their time hidden under logs, loose bark, boards and rocks, or deep inside rodent burrows. In the hot months they are active mostly at dusk and at night, while in spring and fall they are more often out during the day. On cool days they bask to warm up.

They are excellent climbers. Using the edges of their belly scales to grip bark, corn snakes climb trees, cliffs and the walls of buildings, and they sometimes turn up in attics or inside birdhouses. Young snakes stay mostly on the ground for their first few months.

In the northern and inland parts of the range, corn snakes spend the winter in brumation, the reptile form of winter dormancy, usually from about October to April. They shelter in rock crevices, stumps, root holes and burrows. In southern Florida they may remain active through the winter, coming out on warm days.

When threatened, a corn snake usually tries to flee. If cornered it may coil, vibrate its tail rapidly in dry leaves to make a buzzing sound, strike with its mouth closed or open, and release a foul-smelling musk. These bluffs make it look more dangerous than it is.

Reproduction and life cycle

Corn snakes mate in spring, generally from March to May, soon after they emerge from winter shelter. Males find females by following their scent trails and may wrestle with rival males for access. About one to two months after mating, the female lays a clutch of usually 10–30 leathery, oblong eggs, typically from May to July. She hides them in a warm, humid place such as a rotting stump, a pile of decaying vegetation or a burrow, and then leaves. There is no parental care.

The eggs hatch after roughly two months, usually between July and September. Hatchlings are about 20–35 cm (8–14 in) long and slit the shell with a temporary egg tooth. They are paler and less contrasting than adults, and their colors brighten as they grow and shed. Corn snakes become sexually mature at about 18 months to 2 years, depending on how fast they grow; size matters more than age.

Lifespan

Little is known about how long corn snakes live in the wild, because few have been followed through their whole lives. Predation, road traffic and harsh winters mean that many die young. In captivity, corn snakes often live 15–20 years, and the oldest documented individual lived just over 32 years.

Predators and threats

Corn snakes have many predators. Red-tailed hawks, red-shouldered hawks, owls, foxes, raccoons, opossums, domestic cats and larger snakes such as kingsnakes and racers all eat them, and eggs and hatchlings are especially vulnerable.

People are a significant threat. Many corn snakes are killed on roads, and many more are killed on purpose because they are mistaken for copperheads. Habitat loss from development, the clearing of old fields and the loss of longleaf pine habitat all reduce local populations. The ways to tell these two snakes apart are covered in copperhead vs corn snake.

Conservation status

The IUCN Red List classifies the corn snake as Least Concern, because it has a large range, is common in many areas and adapts well to farmland and suburbs. Some local populations are in trouble, however. At the northern edge of the range, in New Jersey, the corn snake is listed as endangered by the state, mainly because its pine barrens habitat is limited and fragmented.

Myths and facts

Myth: corn snakes are baby copperheads. Corn snakes and copperheads are not related, and both hatch looking much like their parents. A corn snake has a slim build, a narrow head, round pupils and black-edged blotches on the back, while a copperhead has a heavy body, a broad triangular head, vertical pupils and hourglass-shaped crossbands.

Myth: corn snakes get their color from eating corn. Corn snakes never eat grain. Their orange and red colors come from pigment cells in the skin, and the name refers to the places where they hunted rodents or to their belly pattern.

Fact: corn snakes are closely related to kingsnakes. Genetic studies show that the American rat snakes, including the corn snake, are more closely related to kingsnakes and milk snakes than to the Old World rat snakes in the genus Elaphe, the group in which the corn snake was placed until 2002.

Relationship with people

Corn snakes help farmers and homeowners by eating large numbers of mice and rats, which damage crops and stored food. Their calm temperament and bright colors have also made them one of the most widely bred snakes in captivity, with many artificial color forms. Escaped captive snakes have become established outside the native range, which is why releasing any reptile into the wild is harmful and often illegal.

In the wild, the best way to enjoy a corn snake is to watch it from a distance and let it move on. Like most snakes in the southeastern United States, including those in snakes in Florida, it is far more interested in hiding than in confronting people.