Texas Patch-Nosed Snake

Range

Salvadora lineata ranges central to south Texas extending into northern Mexico.

Habitats

Found in pine forests, canyons, slopes, open woodland, prairies, savannas, and shrublands. Diet includes reptile eggs, small mammals, small snakes, and lizards.

Identification

Salvadora lineata has a well-developed rostral scale, elongated and with free edges; 8 or 9 supralabials, fourth and fifth in contact with the eye; 9 to 11 infralabials; preocular divided; a single loreal scale; prenasal scale in contact with or separated from the second supralabial; a second pair of chinshields in contact with each other or separated by a row of scales; 179–202 ventral scales; 81–107 subcaudal scales; maxillary teeth normally 10 + 3. Color pattern consists of a pale vertebral line reaching the top of the head, three to five rows of scales wide on the first third of the body and only three posteriorly; head bordered by a pair of continuous dorsolateral lines from the loreal region across the body, dark line on the sixth and seventh dorsal scales; lateral line paler than the well-developed dorsolateral line on the third row of dorsal scales.

Learn more with Schechter Natural History's Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians