Northwestern Ringneck Snake
A wild northwestern ringneck snake posed in an antelope bitterbrush shrub solely for this photograph. This fast, secretive, nocturnal and beautiful small predator is a subspecies of the ringneck snake found all over North America. Unlike most other subspecies, instead of the normal black background, this group has a blue-gray color variation with the typical striking bright orange belly and neck ring. Notice the curled tail, which serves as a "warning flag" - a common threat display warning a bigger predator (me in this case) that it is toxic to eat, which is entirely a bluff.
- Copyright
- © 2014
- Image Size
- 4000x6000 / 7.4MB
- Keywords
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America, Animalia, Chordata, Colubridae, Cowiche Canyon, Cowiche Canyon Trail, Diadophis punctatus, Diadophis punctatus occidentalis, Northwest, Northwestern ringneck snake, PNW, Reptilia, Serpentes, Spring, Squamata, USA, United States, Vertebrata, Washington, Yakima, Yakima County, animal, animals, antelope bitterbrush, beautiful, beauty, black, blue, camouflage, cold-blooded, color, colorful, colubrid, creature, critter, exotic, eye, fauna, gray, grey, native, natural, nature, nocturnal, orange, red, reptile, reptilian, ring-necked snake, ringneck snake, scale, scaly, secretive, serpent, skin, small, snake, vertebrate, wild, wildlife
- Contained in galleries
- Snakes
