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- Written by Clyde McMillan-Gamber Clyde McMillan-Gamber
As adults, ring-necked snakes and brown snakes are a little over a foot long and slender. Both are common species in southeastern Pennsylvania and the eastern two-thirds of the United States.
Both kinds live under fallen logs and leaves on woodland floors — and that is where they hibernate through each winter.
Harmless to people, these snakes are mostly nocturnal, secretive, and seldom seen by anyone, although I have seen a few each of these beautifully marked species through the years. Both are even difficult to spot when abroad in daylight because they are diminutive and camouflaged on dead-leaf-covered forest floors.
Both these kinds of lovely snakes consume earthworms, slugs, beetle grubs, and other types of invertebrates on woods floors. Ring-necked snakes also routinely ingest woodland salamanders.
But both these little snakes, in turn, are preyed on by larger snakes, striped skunks, long-tailed weasels, short-tailed shrews, and woodland hawks and owls. These little, camouflaged snakes have good reason to hide away as much as they can.
Ring-necked snakes are quite handsome. In this area, they are glossy-black on top and yellow or orange underneath. The noticeable ring around each one’s neck is the same bright color as its underbelly, making each snake attractive.
Defenses of ring-necks are to emit a foul-smelling musk and to curl their colorful under-tails up to show their bright colors. Vivid colors on creatures, particularly some insect species, often mean “don’t eat me because I am poisonous.”
Ring-necks are not poisonous in any way, but they try to make would-be predators think they are, to save their own scales.
In June, each female ring-neck lays a few to about 10 elongated, 1-inch eggs in a sheltered place on a forest floor. The thin, 3-inch young hatch late in summer and resemble their pretty parents, except for size. I saw only one newly hatched ring-neck over the years, lying dead on a soil road in a local woodland. It was so attractive, and so tiny.
Some brown snakes inhabit towns and suburbs, as well as woodland floors. They are gray-brown all over with darker, decorative markings.
Brown snake females each give live birth to several tiny babies each year. Though these snake species are not related, newly born brown snakes resemble ring-necked snakes in that each one has a white ring around its neck.
Ring-necked snakes and brown snakes are harmless and secretive, but attractive. When spotted, they are lovely additions to woods floors in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere.
Clyde McMillan-Gamber is a retired Lancaster County Parks naturalist.