Reptiles
Scarlet Snake
Cemophora coccinea · also called scarlet snakes
A scarlet snake wears the warning colours of a venomous coral snake without carrying a drop of venom itself, a bluff good enough that predators wary of the real thing tend to leave it alone too. Underground for nearly its entire life, it uses specialised rear teeth to do something few other snakes bother with: puncture and eat reptile eggs almost exclusively.
Overview
The scarlet snake, Cemophora coccinea, is a harmless, secretive burrower of sandy pine forest and scrubland across the southeastern United States. Bold red, black, and yellow bands mimic the pattern of the venomous coral snake — but on a scarlet snake, red bands are always separated from yellow by black, never touching directly.
A specialist that lives out of sight
Spending nearly its whole life underground or beneath logs and leaf litter, the scarlet snake surfaces rarely, mainly at night. Enlarged rear teeth let it puncture and feed on reptile eggs, a food source most snakes are not specifically equipped to exploit.
Status
Least Concern — reasonably widespread across suitable loose-soil habitat, though its secretive burrowing lifestyle makes true population trends harder to track than for more visible snakes.
Scarlet Snake: common questions
How can you tell a scarlet snake apart from a venomous coral snake?
The most reliable distinguishing feature is the arrangement of the coloured bands — on a scarlet snake the red bands are separated from the yellow bands by black, while on a genuine coral snake the red and yellow bands touch each other directly, a pattern often summarised by the rhyme "red touches yellow, kill a fellow; red touches black, friend of Jack" used in parts of the southeastern United States. The scarlet snake's belly is also typically plain white or cream rather than boldly banded like its back, another useful clue when the two species might otherwise be confused.
Why does the scarlet snake have colouring similar to a dangerous coral snake if it is harmless?
This resemblance is considered a case of Batesian mimicry, in which a harmless species evolves to resemble a dangerous or unpalatable one closely enough that predators which have learned to avoid the dangerous coral snake also avoid the harmless mimic out of caution, providing the scarlet snake a real survival benefit without it needing to be venomous itself. This strategy only works effectively where the mimic and the genuinely dangerous model species overlap significantly in range, which is indeed the case for the scarlet snake and coral snakes in parts of the southeastern United States.
What makes the scarlet snake's diet unusual compared with other snakes?
Its strong specialisation on reptile eggs, particularly the eggs of lizards and other snakes, supported by enlarged rear teeth adapted specifically for gripping and puncturing leathery eggshells, is a relatively unusual and specific dietary focus compared with the broader, more varied prey typically taken by many other small North American snake species. This specialisation ties the scarlet snake's feeding success closely to the availability of suitable reptile eggs within its habitat.
Why is the scarlet snake so rarely seen even where it is fairly common?
The species spends the overwhelming majority of its life burrowing through loose soil and sand or sheltering beneath logs, rocks, and leaf litter, only rarely coming to the surface and generally doing so at night, which makes direct encounters with the scarlet snake considerably less common than its actual local abundance might suggest. This deeply secretive, burrowing lifestyle is a major reason the species is often considered mysterious or rare by casual observers despite being reasonably widespread within suitable habitat.