Why Is It Called a Corn Snake? The Name Explained

Explanation 1: the snake of the corn crib

For centuries, farmers in the southeastern United States stored harvested maize, known in America as corn, in corn cribs. These were slatted wooden sheds that let air flow through the ears to dry them. Corn cribs attracted large numbers of house mice, deer mice and rats, and the rodents in turn attracted snakes.

The corn snake is a skilled climber and an excellent rodent hunter, so it was a regular visitor to cribs, barns and grain stores. Farmers who opened a crib and found a red-and-orange snake among the corn had a ready name for it. This is the explanation given in many field guides and zoo fact sheets.

The name is old. It was already in English use in colonial America, long before scientists described the snake in detail. That is also when farmers would have met it most often, because most rural families kept their own stored grain.

Explanation 2: a belly like Indian corn

Turn a corn snake over and you see a belly that is white or pale yellow with irregular black squares, arranged a little like a checkerboard. Near the tail the black marks often blend into two stripes. Many people think the pattern looks like the kernels on an ear of multicolored flint corn, the kind sold in the fall as Indian corn.

This idea is often repeated in books and on websites, and it may well have strengthened the name. There is less historical evidence that it was the original reason. A name that people hear and see confirmed, by both a snake in the corn crib and a corn-like belly, tends to stick, so the two explanations probably reinforced each other.

What the historical evidence says

Most herpetologists, the scientists who study reptiles, treat the corn-crib origin as the most likely one and mention the belly as a possible additional reason. The honest answer is that no single document proves who first used the name or why.

Other names for the corn snake

Before “corn snake” became standard, the same animal went by several regional names:

• Red rat snake. This is still widely used and fits the snake well: it is a red-colored member of the American rat snake group and eats many rats.
• Chicken snake. Like other rat snakes, corn snakes sometimes took eggs and chicks from farmyard henhouses.
• Copperhead. In some rural areas, people mistakenly called the red corn snake a copperhead. This confusion has cost many harmless corn snakes their lives. The differences are explained in copperhead vs corn snake.

Standard English names for North American reptiles are now kept by herpetological societies, and “corn snake” is the accepted one.

The scientific name

The scientific name, Pantherophis guttatus, describes the pattern rather than the habit. Pantherophis combines Greek words for “panther” and “snake”, a reference to the spotted pattern found in this group of rat snakes. Guttatus is Latin for “spotted” or “speckled.”

The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1766 as Coluber guttatus. For much of the 20th century it was placed in the genus Elaphe, as Elaphe guttata, alongside the rat snakes of Europe and Asia. In 2002 genetic research showed that American rat snakes form their own group, more closely related to kingsnakes than to the Old World rat snakes, and they were moved to Pantherophis. Some older books still use Elaphe guttata.

Why common names can mislead

Common names often describe where people met an animal rather than what it is. “Corn snake” tells you nothing about the snake’s diet, and it can even suggest the wrong idea that it eats grain. Names like “chicken snake” and “copperhead” were worse, because they encouraged people to see a useful rodent hunter as a pest or a danger.

This is why scientists rely on scientific names. A single scientific name, used worldwide, avoids the confusion of regional nicknames that change from county to county.

Are corn snakes still found near corn?

Yes. Corn snakes still live around farms, old barns and fields, especially in the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia, wherever rodents are common. They also live far from crops, in pine woods, forest edges and rocky hillsides. Their wild range and habitats are described in Where do corn snakes live?.

A corn snake in a barn is not a problem but a free helper: it is harmless to people and eats mice and rats that damage stored food.