It’s a black and white snake that’s common to see in Virginia but often overlooked because it’s not what snake experts consider “venomous sexy” — the eastern kingsnake.
But researchers with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources launched an effort this summer to start better tracking and learning more about the eastern kingsnake, known as Lampropeltis getula. It’s one of the first such undertakings and an attempt to get a better sense of the eastern kingsnake’s population in the commonwealth.
“It’s one of those snakes that’s fairly common, but we’re trying to get some baseline information on them,” said J.D. Kleopfer, the state’s herpetologist with the Department of Wildlife Resources. Because the snakes are relatively common in Virginia, they often get ignored or overlooked.
Kleopfer and his team tagged 17 of them this summer in the Chesapeake area of Virginia. His team captures the eastern kingsnakes, takes measurements and tags them with a small metal tracking device that’s injected under their skin to follow them and watch for changes in their population.
“Over time we can tell their growth rates, get an estimate of their population size and see a lot of trends with them over time that way,” he said.
Experts said there’s concern that fire ants, which have spread into parts of southeastern Virginia, are harming the population of eastern kingsnakes. In Alabama and Georgia, Kleopfer said, it’s believed fire ants have contributed to the decline of eastern kingsnakes, as they may destroy their eggs and vulnerable young.
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Eastern kingsnakes will eat “pretty much anything they catch,” including lizards, rodents and turtle eggs. But they’re somewhat unique in that they are quite capable of killing and eating other snakes. They can even handle the bite from venomous snakes such as cottonmouths, timber rattlesnakes and copperheads.
They can subdue and eat other snakes that are 20 percent larger than they are because they have twice the constricting strength of a ratsnake and have muscles in their throat that essentially fold the prey as it is swallowed.
In Virginia, eastern kingsnakes are found mainly in the Coastal Plain and Piedmont regions and in the Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge Mountains. They live in forests, fields and swamps and can also be found on farms and in suburban areas.
Kleopfer said eastern kingsnakes are quite docile and seldom bite when handled but will typically just vibrate their tail. He said there are also problems with people poaching them from the wild in parts of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina and selling them at pet trade shows, which is illegal.
He said his team plans to continue to tag and monitor the snakes for the next several years.
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