Snake Identifier

Snake Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ snakes from around the world — with venomous status, family, range, size, habitat, and how to tell look-alikes apart.

Elegant Coral Snake

A tricolor coral snake of humid montane and lowland forests in eastern Mexico.

Cope's Garter Snake

A highland garter snake from the Valley of Mexico, named after the prolific 19th-century naturalist Edward Drinker Cope.

Black-Banded Sea Snake

A slender sea snake marked with bold black bands along a pale body, found in muddy coastal waters and estuaries throughout South and Southeast Asia.

Western Shovel-Nosed Snake

Western Shovel-Nosed Snake

A small, banded desert specialist with a flattened, shovel-shaped snout adapted for burrowing through loose sand.

Yellow-speckled Wolf Snake

Yellow-speckled Wolf Snake

A nocturnal Asian wolf snake with fine yellow speckling on a dark body, preying chiefly on lizards.

Loveridge's Garter Snake

Loveridge's Garter Snake

A short-tailed garter snake found in high-elevation grasslands and pine-oak forests of Mexico.

Baja California Rat Snake

Baja California Rat Snake

A smooth, glossy reddish-brown rat snake endemic to rocky canyons of the Baja California peninsula.

South American Coral Snake

South American Coral Snake

A strikingly banded elapid of South American forests and wetlands, marked with the classic red-black-yellow triad pattern shared by many New World coral snakes.

Plains Black-Headed Snake

Plains Black-Headed Snake

A small, secretive prairie snake with a plain tan body capped by a distinct black head and neck collar.

Langsdorff's Coral Snake

Langsdorff's Coral Snake

A widespread Amazonian coral snake named after German naturalist Georg von Langsdorff, patterned in bold tricolor rings.

New Guinea Small-Eyed Snake

New Guinea Small-Eyed Snake

A large, potent elapid found in New Guinea, notable for its small eyes and highly variable coloration.

Hallowell's Coffee Snake

A small forest-floor snake of Central America closely related to the redback coffee snake, marked with a pale collar and dark body.

Plain-bellied Water Snake

Plain-bellied Water Snake

A stout water snake with a plain, unpatterned belly ranging from yellow to orange, and a mostly uniform dorsal color as an adult.

MacClelland's Coral Snake

MacClelland's Coral Snake

A small, brightly patterned coral snake of Asian montane forests, recognized by its orange-brown body with black crossbands and a black-and-orange head pattern.

Northern Water Snake

Northern Water Snake

A heavy-bodied, aquatic colubrid often mistaken for a venomous cottonmouth, common around lakes, ponds, and rivers.

Twin-spotted Rat Snake

Twin-spotted Rat Snake

A small, slender rat snake from China marked with paired dark spots along its back, well suited to rocky and hilly terrain.

Olive-Headed Sea Snake

Olive-Headed Sea Snake

A moderately large sea snake with an olive-toned head and faint banding, found in the estuarine and coastal waters of northern Australia.

Eastern Ribbon Snake

Eastern Ribbon Snake

A slender, striped water-loving snake closely related to garter snakes, distinguished by its very long tail and slim build.

Mexican Parrot Snake

Mexican Parrot Snake

A slender green tree snake closely related to the parrot snake, found in Mexican and Central American forests.

Japanese Coral Snake

Japanese Coral Snake

A small, secretive coral snake endemic to the subtropical Ryukyu Islands of Japan, patterned with reddish-brown bands and equipped with mild neurotoxic venom.

Horseshoe Whip Snake

Horseshoe Whip Snake

A slender, patterned colubrid named for the horseshoe-shaped marking on the back of its head, found across southern Iberia and North Africa.

African Beaked Snake

African Beaked Snake

A fast-moving, mildly venomous African colubrid with an upturned snout used for digging out rodent burrows.

Black-Headed Sea Snake

Black-Headed Sea Snake

A sea snake with a strikingly dark head found along the coasts of Japan and Taiwan, occupying temperate to subtropical coastal waters.

Mexican Garter Snake

Mexican Garter Snake

A wetland-dependent garter snake of the desert Southwest and Mexico, now rare across much of its northern range.