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Northern Redbelly Snake
Storeria occipitomaculatus occipitomaculatus (Storev)
These snakes can be coloured brown or grey on the back, but the distinctive belly is bright rd-orange or orange. There is usually a lighter row of spots around the neck, but the red and brown colours make it easy to tell from a Ringneck Snake.
Redbelly Snakes are widespread in Nova Scotia, but are not often seen because usually hide under rocks, logs or even discarded junk during the day. At night, or earlier on overcast days, they come out to eat their main food item - slugs. Redbelly Snakes are a big help to people like bluueberry farmers because they eat the slugs that damage fruit.
Redbellied Snakes do not lay eggs. Females have 3 - 12 young in late summer, born alive. The young start life at 7 - 10 cm long, and grow to 20 - 30 cm as adults.
Additional Facts and Details
The variety of colour and pattern of the Northern Redbelly Snake is complicated. An individual can be olive-brown, tan-brown, chestnut-brown, grey-brown, grey or even black and the back and sides. Look closely - the colour is usually made of three subtle shades that form a striped pattern.
How big do they get? We measured some Northern Redbellies from Nova Scotia:
Redbelly Snakes range from Nova Scotia to Saskatchewan, south to Florida and Texas. In Nova Scotia, they are widespread on the mainland and Cape Breton Island.
Earliest record for seeing one out of hibernation in spring: April 13, 1980, New Ross, Lunenburg County. This is also the earliest record for any spring snake in Nova Scotia.
Latest record for seeing one in the fall: October 27, in 1931.
These are night-time creatures. One misty morning in the pre-dawn darkness of August, 1973, John Gilhen saw 47 Redbelly snakes along 30 km of highway in Queens County. 42 of them had been squashed by cars.
They are live-bearers; females bear from 3 to 12 young during August and the first half of September.
Redbelly Snakes chow down on slugs, mostly. This is really valuable to blueberry farmers, because slugs damage blueberries. But burning over blueberry fields, which is common in Nova Scotia as a quick pruning method, probably kills any snakes in the fields.
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