‹ Compare two snakes
Mud Snake vs Ring-necked Snake
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Jessica McDaniel, no rights reserved
Mud Snake
Farancia abacura
Non-venomous(c) Zakqary Roy, some rights reserved (CC BY)
Ring-necked Snake
Diadophis punctatus
Mildly venomousThe quick way to tell
Look at the neck and sides. The Mud Snake has no neck ring but has red bars rising up its lower sides. The Ring-necked Snake is much smaller and has a yellow or orange ring around the neck with no red bars on the sides.
Pattern ★ This settles it
Glossy black or bluish-gray above with smooth, shiny scales. Red to pink bars rise up from the belly onto the lower sides. The belly is red or pink checkered with black blocks. A few individuals lack red and show white instead of red.
Plain slate gray with a bright yellow to red neck ring and matching belly.
Head
Rounded and about as wide as the neck, black on top, with yellowish to red lip scales marked with black spots.
Small plain head, no wider than the neck.
Eyes
Small.
Round pupil, small dark eye; no heat-sensing pit.
Pits
None. There is no pit between the eye and the nostril.
None. There is no pit between the eye and the nostril.
Tail
Short and ends in a hard, pointed spine; it may press this against a hand but it cannot break skin.
Short, brightly coloured underneath; no rattle.
What it does
Very secretive and mostly hidden in mud, wet debris or water. When resting it often lies in tight, stacked loops. When disturbed it may thrash, show its red belly, release musk and poke with its tail tip, but it almost never bites. Females often stay coiled with their eggs.
Curls its tail into a tight coil to show the bright underside.
Where it lives
Southeastern US: the Coastal Plain from southeastern Virginia to southern Florida, west to eastern Texas, and north up the Mississippi River valley to southern Illinois, western Kentucky, southeastern Missouri and Oklahoma. Not found in Canada or Mexico.
Most of the US except the northern plains and driest desert, plus southern Canada and parts of Mexico.