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Pine woods snake

Rhadinaea flavilata · Snakes · Reptiles

Pine woods snake (Rhadinaea flavilata): Slender, smooth-scaled snake, usually 25-33 cm (to about 40 cm); yellowish-brown to reddish-brown, paler on the lower sides. Dark line from the snout through the eye to the jaw corner; lips plain white or yellowish in Florida but often dark-speckled in the north and west of the range. This profile does not establish whether taking it is legal anywhere.

Check rules for a place and date

Certified rules currently represented in Hunt: coverage in development. This is coverage, not a legal answer.

Scientific name
Rhadinaea flavilata
Family
Colubridae
In North America
Native
Range
Southeastern coastal plain of the United States only: Alabama, Florida (most of the peninsula south to near Lake Okeechobee plus the central panhandle), Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Biology

How to identify it

Slender, smooth-scaled snake, usually 25-33 cm (to about 40 cm); yellowish-brown to reddish-brown, paler on the lower sides. [1][2]

Dark line from the snout through the eye to the jaw corner; lips plain white or yellowish in Florida but often dark-speckled in the north and west of the range. [1][2]

Belly white, cream or yellowish; 17 scale rows behind the neck, divided anal plate, round pupils. [1][2]

Often a faint dark stripe down the middle of the back and another on each side. [1][2]

Field knowledge

Where it lives

Damp pine flatwoods, slash and longleaf pine woodland maintained by periodic fire; also hardwood hammocks near flatwoods, sandhills near water and wooded wet-prairie edges. [1][2]

Field knowledge

How it behaves

Secretive and fossorial; found under loose bark, in or under rotting logs and stumps, leaf litter or buried in sandy soil. [1][2]

Active on the surface chiefly at night; most active in spring and may be active year-round. [1][2]

Eats small amphibians and reptiles (lizards, frogs, salamanders); rear teeth deliver a mild venom to immobilise prey and it does not bite when handled. [1][2]

Lays 2-4 eggs, usually in rotting wood, from late April or May through August. [1][2]

Regulatory handoff

Limited legal take

Legal take of this species exists only under narrow conditions — a quota, a draw, a permit, a small area, or animals released or held on private land — set by the authorities below. Nowhere else is a legal opportunity implied, and Hunt shows one only where a certified rule establishes it.

Where legal take is listed

Being listed is not an open season. Seasons, zones, licences, methods and limits decide whether this animal may be taken on a given day and place — check Hunt or the authority before you go. Listings read 2026-09-30.

Geospatial intelligence

Where it is found

Southeastern coastal plain of the United States only: Alabama, Florida (most of the peninsula south to near Lake Okeechobee plus the central panhandle), Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Biology

Sources

Every claim above is attributed to one of these published sources.

  1. NatureServe · reviewed 2026-09-30

    NatureServe

  2. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology · reviewed 2026-09-30

    University of Michigan Museum of Zoology