Coachwhip

(Masticophis flagellum)

"Eastern Coachwhip"

Color Photograph: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

"Western Coachwhip"

Color Photograph: U.S. National Parks Service

"Sonoran Coachwhip" (Arizona)

Color Photographs: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

"Red Coachwhip" (Southern California)

"Baja California Coachwhip" (Southern California)

Color Photographs: Chris Brown, U.S. Geological Survey

Coachwhip (Masticophis flagellum)

Identification: Snake 36 to 102 inches in length. A large snake with an unusually elongate, narrow tail. Very agile and fast. Body coloration extremely variable, both geographically and individually. Depending on location individuals may be banded or unbanded and color varies from yellow, to red, brown, or black. Preocular scale is triangular and wedged between two upper labial scales. Scales smooth and anal plate divided.

Geographical Variation:

Eastern Coachwhip (M. f. flagellum): Head and neck dark brown to black; body fading to lighter from the middle to the tail; body not banded or only vaguely banded. Range: North Carolina southward through Florida; westward to the Mississippi River, southeastern Kansas and southward to Louisiana.

Western Coachwhip (M. f. testaceus): Variable in color, light brown, olive, yellow, or pink red dorsally; some individuals with short dark bands on the head, neck, and broad bands on the anterior half of the body. Range: Southwestern Nebraska, western Kansas, westward to western Colorado, and southward to central and eastern New Mexico. Also in northern Mexico.

Lined Coachwhip (M. f. lineatulus): Color light gray or tan, unbanded; each individual scale in the anterior half of the body has a dark horizontal streak through it (the body as a whole is not lined). Range: Southwestern New Mexico and southward into Mexico.

Sonoran Coachwhip (M. f. cingulum): Body color light pink interrupted with dark red-brown bands; dark bands wider than light bands; sometimes red-brown or black. Range: South-central Arizona southward into Mexico.

Red Coachwhip (M. f. piceus): Two forms. First form red or pink above, sometimes fading toward the tail; head and neck with wide brown or black bands. Second form black, lighter below and belly becoming pink to red toward tail. Range: Western and southern Nevada southward through the lower one-third of California and eastward through western and southern Arizona. Also in northeastern Baja California.

Baja California Coachwhip (M. f. fuliginosus): Two forms. One form is light gray or yellow with a pattern of zigzag lines along the body (the one illustrated below). Second form dark gray-brown above with a lined pattern on the sides. Range: Extreme southern California and Baja California.

San Joaquin Coachwhip (M. f. ruddocki): Body light yellow to olive yellow; dark bands missing from head, neck, and body. Range: Eastern and southern California.

Range (see map below): Widely distributed in the southern United States and Mexico. The species ranges throughout most of the southeastern United States westward into the lower prairie states, and westward through southern New Mexico, Arizona, southern Nevada, and the lower half of California.

Habitat: The Coachwhip occurs in a wide variety of habitats depending on geography. In the east it occurs in pine woodlands or palmetto regions. Midwestern populations occur in prairie. Western population prefer dry areas such as rocky hillsides, chaparral, and scrub dominated desert.

Food: A wide variety of prey including large insects, small mammals, birds and bird eggs, lizards, and carrion.

Behavior: The Coachwhip is diurnal and an agile, fast, and sometimes aggressive snake. It crawls very rapidly and also readily climbs trees and shrubs. During the hotest times of the day it will take shelter in mammal burrows. If disturbed it defends itself aggresively, hissing and striking, and sometimes charging the offender. If captured it bites readily and rapidly.

Reproduction:  The clutch consists of 3 to 12 eggs. The eggs may be laid in a rodent burrow. Young hatch in August.

Coachwhip (Masticophis flagellum)

The Coachwhip is an extremely variable species and might be confused with a wide variety of other snakes. However the long, narrow tail and lack of lateral stripes is fairly distinctive as is the presence of a triangular, wedged preocular scale near the eye. Other species of Masticophis, such as the

Striped Whipsnake (Masticophis taeniatus)

have conspicuous lateral stripes on the body.