While driving on a remote, Las Vegas Area road one night last month, I noticed a tiny serpent on the pavement, crossing the street.

The Desert Night Snake is unusual among colubrids (the family it belongs to) in that it has elliptical pupils and is rear-fanged (mildly venomous, though harmless to humans).

They tend to be small snakes, between one and two feet long, featuring pale gray or light brown ground color with brown blotches on its back and sides. Its head is flattened and triangular and it usually has a pair of dark brown blotches on the neck.

These snakes can occupy a variety of habitats other than deserts, like grasslands, chaparral, woodlands and sagebrush flats. Their primary food item is lizards, which they use their venom to subdue.

I haven’t seen one of these snakes in a few years, so it was really neat to encounter this one on my visit to the Mojave Desert.

Third Eye Herp
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