milk snakes
Banded rodent hunters
Milk snakes are nonvenomous North American snakes of the kingsnake genus, marked by bands of red, black, and white or yellow.
The name comes from the folk belief that they suck milk from cows—impossible, but the snakes do frequent barns hunting rodents.
Their coloring mimics the venomous coral snake, prompting the rhyme "red touches yellow, kills a fellow; red touches black, friend of Jack."
- nonvenomousProducing no poison
- reptileCold-blooded scaled vertebrate
- scalesPlates or weighing devices
- slitherGlide smoothly, sinuously
- wildlifeUndomesticated natural organisms
captive bred · species · Batesian mimicry · constriction · mimicry · habitat · herpetology · pet trade · grassland · forest · mice · kingsnake · agricultural area · terrarium · rodent control · tricolored · captive breeding · bands
milk snakescoral snakes
Venomous banded elapids
rattlesnakes · copperheads · cottonmouths · pit vipers · fer-de-lance
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