Snake Food Habits 1 1 7 



Snakes examined were from Caldwell, Columbus, Duplin, Mecklen- 

 burg and Stanly cos., NC. 



Farancia erytrogramma er tyro gramma, Rainbow Snake. 



In late April in Sumter County, South Carolina, a snake (86 cm TL) 

 was found at night laboriously attempting to swallow a mammoth tad- 

 pole of Rana heckscheri which it had dragged some 3 m up the bank of a 

 pond. 



Coluber constrictor constrictor, Northern Black Racer. 



The food of this snake is quite diverse. A series of 86 items from 53 

 stomachs included reptiles, mammals, amphibians, arthropods, birds and 

 a small snail, in that order of frequency and apparently all taken indepen- 

 dently. There was great variation in size of animal taken, from a fairly 

 large vole or snake to a small lepidoptera larva or lycosid spider. Reptiles 

 and mammals ranked almost equally in bulk and, with amphibians, com- 

 prised 80 percent of the food items and 95.4 percent of volume. The 38 

 reptiles included: 22 lizards (9 Scincella lateralis, 5 Eumeces sp., 2 Ophisaurus 

 sp., 2 Anolis carolinensis, 1 Sceloporus undulatus, 1 Cnemidophorus sexlineatus, 2 

 undetermined); 15 snakes (5 Carphophis amoenus, 3 Opheodrys aestwus, 2 

 Nerodia fasciata, 1 Coluber constrictor, 1 Tantilla coronata, 1 Virginia stnatula, 1 

 undetermined, and a fragment of shed skin); and 1 young Kinosternon 

 subrubrum. The 15 mammals included: 3 Microtus pinetorum (adult and 

 young), 1 Microtus pennsylvanicus (young), 4 Peromyscus leucopus (mostly 

 young), 1 Sigmodon hispidus, 1 Mus musculus and 5 undetermined. The 16 

 amphibians included: 6 Acns gryllus, 1 Rana sphenocephala, 1 Rana virgatipes, 

 2 just-metamorphosed Rana catesbeiana, 2 Hyla chrysoscelis, 2 undetermined 

 frogs and 2 Desmognathus fuscus. While arthropods made up 15 percent of 

 the items, their bulk was very limited (1.3 percent of volume). They in- 

 cluded 7 lepidoptera larvae, 3 lycosid spiders, 2 moths and 1 diptera 

 larva. Remains of a small, unidentified bird occured in each of three 

 stomachs (2.9 percent of volume). At least two of these were nestlings. 



Sixty-four percent of the stomachs contained a single food item, but 

 one contained seven small frogs (mostly Acns), another had two young 

 mice and two Desmognathus fuscus, and a third, collected on an April morn- 

 ing, had three very fresh Carphophis amoenus. On a morning in early May, a 

 110 cm TL male racer was found vigorously swallowing a 50 cm TL male 

 of its own species. The hatchling eastern mud turtle found in a September 

 specimen was still alive, and had been in the snake's stomach for at least 

 two hours. 



Snakes examined were from Brunswick, Cabarrus, Chatham, Colum- 

 bus, Guilford, Iredell, Lincoln, Mecklenburg, Montgomery, Moore, 



