Scarlet Kings

Darker than many, this is an adult Scarlet Kingsnake. Whether called Scarlet Kingsnakes or Milk Snakes, these mostly small-sized constrictors are so pretty that I can't stop writing about them. The Scarlet Kingsnake, Lampropeltis triangulum elapsoides, is the sole tricolored kingsnake of the southeastern USA. It is a pretty snake, gaudily bedecked with triads of red, then black that separates the red from the yellow, rings, and it almost always (perhaps always, but aberrancies may sometimes happen) has a red nose. In this manner of nose color and ring assembly, the harmless scarlet kingsnake differs from the venomous Eastern Coral Snake, Micrurus fulvius, that almost always has a black nose and again, almost always, has the 2 caution colors, red and yellow, touching. This is one of the smaller of the tricolored kingsnakes, with lengths of 17-20 inches being most common and lengths in excess of 24 inches being quite uncommon. Hatchlings are tiny, often being only 6 to 6 ½” in length. Although large adults may accept nestling mice as prey, throughout their lives this species feeds primarily on suitably sized lizards. The last Scarlet King that I happened upon was found in moist microhabitat beneath a sizable, mouldering,pine limb. Others have been seen crossing roadways, beneath debris, and actually in moist leaf-filled crotches of still living trees.

The rings go all the way around, actually being rings rather than blotches or saddles.

Often being noted as a full species, Scarlet Kingsnakes have a red nose.