You have the pleasure and thrill of seeing a snake being itself in its natural habitat. Then you want to know: What snake is it? Is it rare? What does it eat and how does it live? The key to these questions is to properly identify what you see. Nothing helps more during the identification process than figuring out what "kind" of snake it is -- which taxonomic group it belongs to. These "groupings" have a technical basis, and are the stuff of snake classification

That's a GOPHER SNAKE, Pituophis catenifer, found from South-central and western Canada to Northern Mexico, eastward in the US to Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri and western Texas. About nine subspecies are recognized. Notice that the Gopher Snake's technical, or "binomial," name, Pituophis catenifer, consists of the bottom two categories in the list, the genus and species.

In the whole world, maybe about 3,400 living snake species are recognized, depending on who is counting, and all those snake species belong to the order Squamata. This order also includes lizards, since snakes and lizards are very closely related. But Snakes belong in the suborder Serpentes -- the serpents -- while lizards are placed in the suborder Sauria. The suborder Serpentes isn't included in the above chart, nor are most other sub categories that don't neatly fit into the traditional way of classifying plants and animals. In other words, snake classification is important, but it's not the complete answer. In the end, nothing is better than what one learns in the field, from personal experience.

The Earth's 3,400 or so snake species are separated into 14 or 15 families, or thereabouts. Wikipedia offers a useful List of Serpentes Families.

NORTH AMERICA'S FIVE SNAKE FAMILIES:

Colubrid Snake Family -- the Colubridae -- largest of all snake families. For most of us not living near natural areas or a desert, all species found locally will belong to this family. Among the most important field marks used to separate the various snake families and species are the condition of their individual scales, especially scales on the head, and the "anal plates." These features are described on our Tips for Identifying Snakes page.

In North America, here are the most commonly seen groups of Colubrid snake:

• rat snakes -- genus Elaphe (weakly keeled scales, divided anal plates, often with flattish bottoms as shown on the Yellow-red Ratsnake, Pseudelaphe flavirufa, at the right)
• kingsnakes -- genus Lampropeltis (smooth scales, single anal plates)
• water snakes -- genus Nerodia (keeled scales, divided anal plates)
• garter snakes -- genus Thamnophis (keeled scales, single anal plates)
• hognose snakes -- genus Heterodon (turned-up nose)

Coral Snake Family (venomous) -- the Elapidae (In the US, only in the Deep South & southern Arizona & New Mexico)

Pit Viper Family (venomous) -- the Viperidae (in most of the US; rattlesnakes, copperhead, cottonmouth)

Slender Blind Snake Family -- the Leptotyphlopidae (wormlike, as shown by the Texas Blind Snake, Leptotypholops dulcis, at the right; seldom seen)

Boa & Python Family -- the Boidae (large, thick snakes, in North America found only in the western states and southern British Columbia)

Missing in Europe are the families of the Coral Snakes (Elapidae) and Slender Blind Snakes (Leptotyphlopidae), but instead there are the families of the Blind Snake (Typhlopidae) and the somewhat boa-like Lamprophiidae, the latter with no good English name. As in North America, the overwhelming majority of snake species encountered in Nature by average people belong to the Colubrid Family.