endemic to a single nation

United States

Origin: Native

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Present

Confidence: Confident

Type of Residency: Year-round

Global Range: Southeastern Virginia, Coastal Plain of North and South Carolina, and into all of Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, west into Tennessee and Kentucky.

Holotype for Lampropeltis triangulum elapsoides
Catalog Number: USNM 21163
Collection: Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Division of Amphibians & Reptiles
Preparation: Ethanol; Dry
Year Collected: 1893
Locality: Raleigh, Wake, North Carolina, United States, North America

Comments: Pine flatwoods, wet prairie hammocks; less frequently in bottomland, mixed hardwood, and upland pine forest, sandhills, and maritime hammock; rare in extensive grassy wetlands (except "limestone-lined banks of sugar cane irrigation fields") (Tennant 1997). In or near pine woods beneath logs and stumps; also in coastal plains.

Non-Migrant: No. All populations of this species make significant seasonal migrations.

Locally Migrant: No. No populations of this species make local extended movements (generally less than 200 km) at particular times of the year (e.g., to breeding or wintering grounds, to hibernation sites).

Locally Migrant: No. No populations of this species make annual migrations of over 200 km.

Note: For many non-migratory species, occurrences are roughly equivalent to populations.

Estimated Number of Occurrences: 6 - 80

Comments: Difficult to estimate because of its secretive nature; no exact figures.

United States

Rounded National Status Rank: N5 - Secure

Rounded Global Status Rank: T5 - Secure

Degree of Threat: BC

Comments: Threats include forest clearcutting, pesticides, and misidentification as a coral snake (a poisonous species that is often killed).

Global Protection: None. No occurrences appropriately protected and managed

Comments: Protected at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, and possibly in other preserves.

Comments: Pyron and Burbrink (2009) found that L. elapsoides merits species status.