Farancia
Farancia is a genus of colubrid snakes. It consists of two species, one commonly referred to as the rainbow snake and the other commonly referred to as the mud snake. Both species are native to the southeastern United States.

Alan Garrett · Copyrighted free use · 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- Sits inside
- ColubridaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB
- Life habit
- amphibiousPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At least 645 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.8 Mya to 11.7 ka.
6 occurrences of Farancia 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
6 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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
3 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Farancia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Farancia and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Farancia and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
403 taxa- Alligator mississippiensis6 sites
- Equus5 sites
- Hesperotestudo crassiscutata5 sites
- Crotalus adamanteus4 sites
- Dasypus bellus4 sites
- Drymarchon corais4 sites
- Holmesina septentrionalis4 sites
- Lampropeltis getulus4 sites
- Lepisosteus4 sites
- Neofiber alleni4 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus4 sites
- Procyon lotor4 sites
- Sigmodon hispidus4 sites
- Tapirus (Helicotapirus) veroensis4 sites
- Terrapene carolina4 sites
- Aenocyon dirus3 sites
- Amia calva3 sites
- Anolis carolinensis3 sites
- Blarina carolinensis3 sites
- Didelphis virginiana3 sites
- Gopherus polyphemus3 sites
- Mammut americanum3 sites
- Mammuthus columbi3 sites
- Neotoma floridana3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Farancia, 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- Middle Pleistocene (early Rancholabrean) vertebrates and associated marine and non-marine invertebrates from Oldsmar, Pinnellas County, Florida1
- Pleistocene amphibians and reptiles from the Leisey Shell Pit, Hillsborough County, Florida1
- A Pleistocene vertebrate fauna from Palm Beach County, Florida1
- The Pleistocene vertebrate fauna of Reddick, Florida1
- A Pleistocene herpetofauna near Orange Lake, Florida1
- Vertebrata mostly from Stratum No. 3, at Vero, Florida, together with descriptions of new species1
Each of the 6 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 content1
Picture of Farancia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Alan Garrett
- Licence
- Copyrighted free use
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Farancia 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Farancia”
- 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 itColubridae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1842