A large, climbing, non-venomous constrictor of eastern North America that hunts rodents in barns, attics, and bird boxes.
Description
The eastern rat snake is a slim, glossy black or grey colubrid often exceeding 1.5 m, with faint blotches sometimes visible on the back as a hint of the juvenile pattern. The chin and lower throat are creamy white, and the body cross-section is loaf-shaped from the belly being mostly flat.
Behavior
Rat snakes are excellent climbers, scaling rough tree bark and the inside of barn walls to find roosting birds and rodents. They constrict prey before swallowing and famously raid the nest boxes of bluebirds and barn swallows. They tolerate humans well and often live unobserved in attics.
Range
Found across the eastern United States from southern Ontario to northern Florida and west to the Mississippi River. Recent taxonomic work has split the historic Elaphe obsoleta into eastern, central, and western species.
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