19: Speckled Kingsnake and California Kingsnake

Welcome to Snaketown,

I write to you from Arapahoe, Ute, and Cheyenne land. I am interested in learning about the different animals that live in the place where I was born. I want to mention that biological classification as taught by western science has its roots in racism, sexism, and transphobia – here’s a good explainer about why.

Today’s animal is actually two animals, subspecies of Kingsnake who both occur in Colorado. The speckled kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula holbrooki) is much more common, living in the southeastern, lower elevation part of the state (3800 to 5000 feet above sea level) while the California variety (Lampropeltis getula californiae) lives in the extreme western part of the state.

I feel like snakes, more than most other animals, are named for their appearance (for example, there’s a species called a “smooth green snake”). The speckled kingsnake very much is that, with a beautiful regular black and pale yellow pattern on its entire body.

Here’s a cool thing about kingsnakes: they prey on venomous snakes like copperheads, cottonmouths, and, in Colorado, rattlesnakes. They can do this because they have some form of immunity to venom. Immunity to venom is often acquired for individuals through repeated exposure of larger and larger doses (think The Princess Bride and iocane powder). However, as the great blog called “Life is Short, but Snakes are Long” says:

‘It is not known how kingsnake resistance to viper venom works. Kingsnake resistance is evolved rather than acquired. This means that kingsnakes are born resistant to venom. As far as we know, their resistance levels are fixed for life & don’t change with age or exposure. This has happened over a long time through natural selection, over many generations of kingsnakes. We don't actually have a very exact understanding of the physiological and molecular mechanisms behind how kingsnakes resist the toxic effects of viper venom. At least some of their resistance comes from antibodies—chemicals in their blood that interfere with the venom—because mice injected with kingsnake blood survive viper venom better than those that aren't, and the chemical composition of kingsnake blood changes after exposure to viper venom.’

That blog entry has a great discussion further down the page of other animals’ defenses towards venom, including opossums, mongeese (who actually evolved to have differently shaped cells to combat venom!), and the internet’s fav, the honey badger.

I realize that snakes are trying to be defensive when they open their mouths as if about to strike, but I think many snakes are incredibly cute and with their mouths open they look even cuter. That’s my human perspective coming out. There’s several photos of snakes looking cute here but also a video of a California kingsnake “striking” before fleeing.

In the course of doing research about kingsnakes, I found an entire website dedicated to recording commonly encountered snakes on US military installations. It was weird in a very banal way.