Elaphe obsoleta

The original uploader was Dawson at English Wikipedia . · CC BY-SA 2.5 · via Wikidata/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 rat snakePBDB
- Sits inside
- ElaphePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Elaphe
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Elaphe
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At least 4.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 4.7 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 9.4 Mya to 11.7 ka.
17 occurrences of Elaphe obsoleta 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
17 occurrences- Miocene15%
- Pliocene21%
- Pleistocene63%
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
- Rexroad Formation4
- Kingsdown Formation2
- Bermont Formation1
- Ballard Formation1
- Crooked Creek Formation1
- Vanheim Formation1
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The named rock units Elaphe obsoleta has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Elaphe obsoleta and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Elaphe obsoleta and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
586 taxa- Thamnophis12 sites
- Coluber constrictor9 sites
- Lampropeltis getulus9 sites
- Heterodon platyrhinos7 sites
- Lampropeltis7 sites
- Nerodia7 sites
- Agkistrodon6 sites
- Bufo6 sites
- Equus6 sites
- Antilocapridae5 sites
- Buisnictis schoffi5 sites
- Crotalus viridis5 sites
- Platygonus5 sites
- Felis rexroadensis4 sites
- Heterodon plionasicus4 sites
- Hypolagus regalis4 sites
- Hypolagus ringoldensis4 sites
- Mimomys (Ogmodontomys) poaphagus4 sites
- Onychomys gidleyi4 sites
- Paramylodon harlani4 sites
- Pituophis4 sites
- Pituophis melanoleucus4 sites
- Bensonomys3 sites
- Borophagus3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Elaphe obsoleta, 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
6 references- A succession of Pliocene and Pleistocene snake faunas from the High Plains of the United States11
- Hemphillian (late Miocene) snakes from Nebraska, with comments on Arikareean through Blancan snakes of midcontinental North America2
- Pleistocene amphibians and reptiles from the Leisey Shell Pit, Hillsborough County, Florida1
- A Late Quaternary Herpetofauna from Saltville Virginia1
- Herpetofauna of the Rancholabrean Schulze Cave local fauna of Texas1
- The Pleistocene vertebrate fauna of Reddick, Florida1
Each of the 17 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. 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 content2

Picture of Elaphe obsoleta
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- The original uploader was Dawson at English Wikipedia .
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Elaphe obsoleta · UMMZ:Herps:150080
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itElaphe through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Say 1823)