Discover 7 Snakes Commonly Found in Indiana

Snakes are found in just about every corner of the world save the polar regions. Indiana is no exception. As in most places in North America, most of Indiana’s snakes are nonvenomous and serve a useful purpose by eating vermin such as mice and rats. Here are some of Indiana’s snakes.

Smooth Green Snake

Also called the grass snake, this medium-sized snake ranges between 14 and 20 inches in length. It is a slender snake that gets its name from both its leaf-green color and the smoothness of its scales. It’s described as docile, and though it’s tempting to make a pet of this snake, it is protected in Indiana. That means you can’t collect it and take it home.

After the green snake mates in late spring or summer, the female usually lays two clutches of eggs throughout the summer. You might find these white, ovate eggs in compost piles, abandoned burrows, and old logs. Sometimes, females lay their eggs in a communal nest. Each clutch has between four and six eggs, and they hatch after four and 23 days. Why the time varies so much depends on how long the mother kept the eggs inside her to let them incubate. When the green snake is born, it’s olive green, brown, or bluish-gray, but takes on the bright green adult coloration after it molts. They’re ready to breed after about two years.

What and How It Eats

Like other snakes, the green snake hunts using its forked tongue. The tongue picks up the chemical signals of potential prey. The snake uses this and vibrations to track its prey. When it finds its prey, it grabs it with its jaws and swallows it whole. Because it’s a smallish snake it takes mostly insects and other small invertebrates as prey. In turn, the smooth green snake is preyed on by birds of prey, crows, foxes, and larger snakes. Sometimes a green snake struggles if it’s caught and releases a bad-smelling musk.

Smooth green snakes live in grassy areas near wet places, and on warm days you can find them sunning themselves on logs or boulders. The snake’s active both day and night during the summer, but hibernates during the winter, often with many other snakes.

Ring-Necked Snake

Ring-necked snakes are active at night, so it’s rare to see one moving around during the day. They’re also secretive, but when they’re threatened they raise their tails and flash the red coloration beneath them. Despite this, the snake is nonvenomous and harmless.

The ring-necked snake is usually about 10 to 15 inches long. If you want to tell males from females, flip the snake over. The male has two tiny bumps just behind its vent. Females usually don’t have them. Their dorsal side ranges in color from brown to blue-gray to black, with the head sometimes being darker than the body. There’s a band around the neck that can be yellow, orange-yellow, or red. Beneath, the snake is also orange-yellow to bright red with small, evenly spaced black crescents.

Where It’s Found

In Indiana, you’ll find ring-necked snakes in the open woods or near bodies of water with enough cover to conceal their dens. These snakes often den with other snakes. They’ll also hide under wood or rocks and aren’t above hiding in human habitations.

These snakes eat small amphibians, reptiles, and invertebrates such as frogs, salamanders, and earthworms. Interestingly, ring-neck snakes envenomate as well as constrict their prey. They don’t have a proper venom gland like rattlesnakes do but a structure called the Duvernoy’s gland. This gland sits right behind the snake’s eye and drains into its back teeth. The snake wraps itself around its prey, immobilizes it then bites and envenomates it. Ring-necked snakes don’t use their venom to protect themselves from threats but simply expose their red underparts.

Most ring-necked snakes mate during the spring, though some have been known to wait till autumn. In that case, the female can delay laying her eggs until the weather warms up again. In spring, she lays her eggs under workable soil beneath a rotting log or a rock, and they hatch in late summer. Like many snakes, the hatchlings are ready to fend for themselves when they’re born.

There are 14 subspecies of ring-necked snakes. The ones most likely to be found in Indiana are:

Diadophis punctatus arnyi, or the prairie ring-necked snake
D. punctatus stictogenys, or the Mississippi ringneck snake

Eastern Hognose Snake

This snake gets its name because of its snout, which is turned up, pointed, and reminds some people, somehow, of a hog’s nose. Their snouts allow them to burrow through loose, sandy soil. Sometimes they dig as much as 10 inches deep. This lets them sleep or hibernate undisturbed. Hognose snakes go into hibernation when the temperature drops to 66.2 degrees Fahrenheit. They’ll hibernate in burrows they dig themselves or burrows that have been abandoned by mammals.

The eastern hognose snake has a heavy body, a notably wide head, and a diagnostic snout. They range from about 18 to 41 inches in length, and females are bigger than males. Juvenile snakes are pink with black or brown blotches, while adult coloration can range from light gray, dark gray, tan, gray-green, yellow, or even solid black.

You can find eastern hognose snakes in areas where the soil is dry and sandy which makes it easier for them to dig. They’ll sometimes be found in fields and farmland and along the edges of the woods. They’re active during the day and are fairly good swimmers.

How They Reproduce

The snake mates in spring or early summer, but some mate in fall. If that happens, the female stores the male’s sperm until the weather warms up. Then, she allows the sperm to fertilize her eggs. When it’s time to lay eggs, she’ll find a place that gets lots of sun and lay 10 to 30 eggs between June and July. She buries them in sandy soil beneath rocks, and if she incubates them, she’ll wrap herself around them.

The eggs hatch in late summer, and the hatchlings are between about 4 and 8 inches long. They are immediately independent, grow very quickly, and can gain about 0.79 inches a month. Females are ready to breed when they’re about 21 months old, while males are ready when they’re a year and a half to two years old.

How They Deal With Poison Toads

Eastern hognose snakes mostly eat toads, though they’ll also take small animals, including invertebrates like worms. Like other snakes, they swallow their prey whole, even if it’s alive. They are immune to the toxins toads give off when they’re under attack. If the toad puffs itself up in the snake’s mouth, the snake’s teeth puncture and deflate it. The snake’s upturned snout also lets them dig out toads that are hiding. In turn, hognose snakes are prey for raccoons possums, foxes, birds or prey, tarantulas, other snakes, and of course, humans.

When the snake is under attack it will jump at its attacker and try to bite it. If that doesn’t work, it will famously roll on its back and play dead. If you turn it over, it’ll roll back over and continue to play dead.

Rat Snakes

Rat snakes belong to the Pantherophis genus, and since there are a number of species and subspecies they live in a range of habitats. Some live on farms, hammocks, fields, or swamps. Others live in the mountains while others even live in trees. All rat snakes are nonvenomous, at least to humans. They’ll try to slither away from danger or freeze up. If that doesn’t work, they’ll vibrate their tails. Though they lack rattles at the ends of their tails, shaking their tails in dead leaves makes a threatening sound. If they’re still picked up, they’ll release a bad-smelling musk and may finally try to bite. Among those found in Indiana are:

Great Plains Rat Snake (Pantherophis emoryi)

This 3 to 5-foot-long rat snake is gray, with attractive brown splotches on its back, and stripes on its head that come to a point between its eyes. Nocturnal, it lives on grasslands and can be found on farms or other places where there’s a good population of mice, rats, and voles. Once in a while, it eats birds, frogs, and other reptiles, including other snakes. The female lays her eggs in the spring, and a clutch can have as many as 25.

Gray Rat Snake (P. spiloides)

The gray rat snake grows from around 3.25 to 6 feet in length though one captive snake grew to over 8 feet. Unlike many snakes, it retains the colors and patterns it had when it was a baby. Its upper body has a gray ground with darker blotches, though some Indiana snakes may be black by the time they reach adulthood. The snake prefers hardwood forests and climbs trees easily. Its diet is mostly made up of birds, their eggs, and small mammals, though young snakes take lizards and frogs. The gray rat snake immobilizes its prey by constriction.

The gray rat snake’s mating season lasts from early spring to mid-summer. Mid-summer is when most females lay their eggs. There are usually five to 27 eggs in a clutch, and they hatch in September.

Eastern Fox Snake (P. vulpinus)

The species name of the eastern fox snake is a pun. It was named for Reverend Charles Fox, who collected the first snake that was used to describe the species. Vulpinus means “fox-like” in Latin. Also, some people think that the musk the snake expels when handled has a foxy smell.

The eastern fox snake grows between 3 and 6 feet in length. Its topside is usually golden brown with brown spots, and the scales of its belly form an interesting yellow checkerboard. It lives in a variety of habitats, including farms, marshes, and open woods. Like the gray rat snake, the eastern fox snake is an excellent climber of trees.

Kingsnakes

The kingsnake gets its name because, frankly, it mostly eats other snakes. Members of the Lampropeltis genus, many are also quite beautiful. The gloss on their scales gives them the genus name, which means “shiny shield.” Some species are confused with the equally pretty but venomous coral snake.

In the pursuit of their fellow snakes, king snakes are adept climbers and swimmers. They not only take nonvenomous snakes but cottonmouths, copperheads, and rattlers. Scientists believe kingsnakes are simply immune to the venom of these snakes, especially if they live in the same area. Their constriction force is especially intense since it takes more force to cause another snake to pass out than it does a warm-blooded animal like a rat. When they can’t get snakes, kingsnakes eat birds’ eggs, birds, rodents, and lizards. Species of kingsnake found in Indiana include:

Prairie kingsnake, Lampropeltis calligaster
Eastern kingsnake, L. getula
Speckled kingsnake, L. holbrooki
Black kingsnake, L. nigra

Garter Snake

The widespread garter snake is not only found in Indiana but in all of the 48 contiguous United States and most of the Canadian provinces. They are slender snakes with big round eyes and keeled scales. Many but not all have stripes, and sometimes the stripes are very colorful. Garter snakes range in length from 18 inches to 4.25 feet. There are about 35 species of garter snakes.

For a long time, scientists believed that garter snakes were nonvenomous, and they basically are nonvenomous to humans. Like the ring-necked snake, they have a Duvernoy’s gland whose venom helps them subdue prey such as earthworms, lizards, frogs and their eggs and tadpoles, small rodents, and small fish.

The Sneaky Way Males Warm Up After Brumation

You can find garter snakes in many habitats, though they’re never far from a body of water. They live in woods, forest meadows, and even people’s yards. One rather weird thing about male garter snakes is that they produce male and female pheromones. This tricks other male snakes into trying to mate with them. In the meantime, the snake that gave off the enticing pheromones steals the other snake’s body heat. This usually happens soon after they emerge from brumation when the snake needs to warm up quickly.

Garter snakes are also unusual for snakes in that they bear live young. The female is gravid for about two to three months, and she can give birth to as many as 80 babies at a time, usually from midsummer to early autumn. She does not provide for them and the babies are on their own from birth. Garter snakes are usually read to mate when the males are one and a half years old and the females are about two years old.
Species and subspecies of Indiana garter snakes include:

Butler’s garter snake, Thamnophis butler

Plains garter snake T. raci
Northern ribbon snake T. saurita septentrionalis

Eastern Massasauga

The eastern Massasauga rattlesnake, Sistrurus catenatus is one venomous snake you find in Indiana. You’ll usually find it in moist places such as bogs, fens, wet prairies, and marshes, especially from fall to late spring. In the warmer months, the rattlesnake moves to drier places such as farms.

The massasauga is a type of pit viper. This means it has heat-detecting ‘pits’ on both sides of its head that can find the heat of warm-blooded prey. When it finds the prey, it bites them with hollow fangs that serve almost as hypodermic needles. These “needles” inject the prey with venom and kill it. The snake then waits until the prey is safely dead to swallow it whole. Besides warm-blooded animals such as mice, voles, and shrews, the rattler also eats lizards, frogs, and other snakes.

Though the venom of the massasauga is strong enough to injure or kill a human being, they are shy and would rather avoid trouble. Most people get bitten when they try and pick up a snake or step on it accidentally with bare or sandaled feet.

How to Tell Its Age

The massasauga is also a rattlesnake because it has dried-out hollow segments at the end of its tail that rattle when the snake vibrates them. Because the snake adds new rattles whenever it sheds, they can add 3-4 segments per year!

Massasaugas are heavy-bodied snakes but they’re not very large. They’re only about 18.5 to 39 inches long. They have keeled scales and many are beautifully patterned, with brown or black spots or blotches on a tan or gray ground. There are also individuals who are completely black.

The eastern massasauga mates during the spring and fall. Like the garter snake, the female bears live young after being gravid for about three and a half months. She’ll usually give birth to about five to 20 babies in a burrow or under a fallen log in late summer. Females start to give birth when they’re three or four years old then give birth every other year. Though newborn massasauga have fangs, venom, and even a button rattle, they hang around their mother for a couple of days before they move on.

Summary of 7 Snakes Commonly Found in Indiana