Coluber constrictor
The eastern racer, or North American racer, is a species of nonvenomous snake in the subfamily Colubrinae of the family Colubridae. The species is native to North America and Central America. Eleven subspecies, including the nominotypical subspecies, are recognized, which as a group are commonly referred to as the eastern racers. The species is monotypic in the genus Coluber.

(c) Deana Tempest Thomas, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- black racerPBDB
- Sits inside
- ColuberPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coluber
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Coluber
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At least 12 million years on record.
The record covers at least 12.5 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 16.3 Mya to 11.7 ka.
33 occurrences of Coluber constrictor on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
33 occurrences- Miocene7%
- Pliocene13%
- Pleistocene80%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
6 formations
- Kingsdown Formation4
- Rexroad Formation4
- Long Pine Formation1
- Ballard Formation1
- Crooked Creek Formation1
- Shuler Formation1
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The named rock units Coluber constrictor has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 21 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Coluber constrictor and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Coluber constrictor and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
867 taxa- Thamnophis20 sites
- Equus12 sites
- Agkistrodon11 sites
- Bufo11 sites
- Heterodon platyrhinos11 sites
- Lampropeltis getulus11 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus11 sites
- Nerodia10 sites
- Rana10 sites
- Terrapene carolina10 sites
- Elaphe obsoleta9 sites
- Microtus pennsylvanicus9 sites
- Neotoma floridana9 sites
- Rana pipiens9 sites
- Ursus americanus9 sites
- Canis latrans8 sites
- Dasypus bellus8 sites
- Elaphe8 sites
- Nerodia sipedon8 sites
- Peromyscus8 sites
- Pituophis8 sites
- Spermophilus tridecemlineatus8 sites
- Sylvilagus8 sites
- Thamnophis sirtalis8 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Coluber constrictor, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
21 references- A succession of Pliocene and Pleistocene snake faunas from the High Plains of the United States11
- Climatic significance of a Late Illinoian herpetofauna from southwestern Kansas2
- Fossil snakes of North America2
- The Pipe Creek Sinkhole biota, a diverse late Tertiary continental fossil assemblage from Grant County, Indiana1
- Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) vertebrate faunas from coastal Georgia1
- A late Pleistocene herpetofauna from Bell Cave, Alabama1
- The fossil herpetofauna (Pleistocene; Irvingtonian) of Hamilton Cave, Pendleton County, West Virginia1
- Eshelman and Hager, 19841
- Guilday, 19841
- Herpetofaunas of the Big Springs and Hornet's Nest quarries (northeastern Nebraska, Pleistocene: Late Blancan)1
- The Pleistocene (Kansan) herpetofauna of Trout Cave, West Virginia1
- A new Late Pleistocene Conepatus and associated vertebrate fauna from Florida1
Each of the 33 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 9 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Coluber constrictor
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- (c) Deana Tempest Thomas, some rights reserved (CC BY)
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Coluber constrictor was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itColuber through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)