General Description: Gopher snakes are long, fairly heavy-bodied snakes with a small head. The dorsal color is straw with large dark blotches down the center of the back and smaller, more irregular blotches on the sides. There is a dark line across the forehead between the eyes

Taxonomy: Colubrid Snakes Family (Colubridae). Formerly Pituophis melanoleucus, but this name now refers only to the Pinesnake of the southeastern US.

Technical Description: Body 4 to 5 feet long (72 inches); moderately heavy. Dorsal color straw with large dark blotches down the center of the back and smaller, more irregular blotches on the sides. Head with a dark line extending across the forehead from eye to eye and down to the upper lip.

Diet: Mostly small rodents (mice, rats, gophers, and ground squirrels), also rabbits, birds (quail, ducks, and bird eggs), and lizards. Forages in mammal burrows, on the ground, and in shrubs. Prey killed by constriction.

Habitat: Wide-ranging. Found in all habitat types up to about 7,000 ft elevation, generally absent only from densely forested areas.

Range: This wide-ranging species occurs throughout the United States, southern Canada, and northern Mexico. This subspecies ranges from southern British Columbia south through eastern Washington to southeastern California, and then eastward through Idaho, Utah, western Wyoming, western Colorado, northern Arizona, and northwestern New Mexico.

Breeding: Mates in spring. Lays one or two clutches of 3 to 18 eggs below ground in rock piles, mammal burrows, and loose soil in early summer. Sometimes nests communally. Hatchlings emerge in fall.

Similar Species: No other species in southern Nevada is straw-colored with large dark blotches down the center of the back.

Comments: The color pattern and behavior of gopher snakes mimic those of rattlesnakes; they hiss, flatten their head to make it look more broad and triangular, and vibrate their tail.