Card #063 · Reptiles
Eastern indigo snake
Drymarchon couperi
Common LC · Least Concern
Field notes
- Classification
- Order Squamata · Family Colubridae
- Range
- Southeastern United States
- Size
- 1.4–2.8 m (4.5–9.2 ft)
- Weight
- 1.5–5 kg (3.3–11 lb)
- Lifespan
- ~20 yrs
- Diet
- Snakes, small vertebrates
Most Notable
At up to 2.8 m it is the longest snake native to the United States, and it is immune to the venom of the rattlesnakes it hunts, overpowering them by force. It has no venom of its own.
It cannot dig, so it borrows. Through the cold months the indigo snake dens in burrows made by the gopher tortoise, and where the tortoise has gone the snake has followed it out. That is why a snake the global Red List calls Least Concern is Threatened in the United States.
It is not venomous and does not constrict. It simply overpowers prey with its jaws, which is enough for a snake this size to take rattlesnakes whole.
A female can store live sperm for long periods, potentially over four years, and produce fertile eggs long after the mating that produced them.
The IUCN lists it as Least Concern worldwide, but it is federally Threatened in the United States and has disappeared from the western end of its historic range.
Range: Florida and southern Georgia; lost from much of its range.