THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Squamata (part)    Colubridae  

Common Scarletsnake
Cemophora coccinea (Blumenbach, 1788)

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 “Common” was added to the English name to differentiate it from the English name of the genus.

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2024.11.20.07.48.21)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 1.31 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: Alabama Arkansas Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Indiana Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Mississippi Missouri New Jersey North Carolina Oklahoma South Carolina Tennessee Texas Virginia

First instance(s) of published English names:
Scarlet-snake (Coluber coccineus: Harlan, Richard. 1827. Genera of North American Reptilia, and a synopsis of the species Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences Philidelphia 5(2):317-372); Scarlet Snake (Cemophora coccinea: Yarrow, Henry C. 1882. Check list of North American Reptilia and Batrachia with catalogue of specimens in U. S. National Museum. Bulletin of the United States National Museum (24):1-249); Red King Snake (Ophibolus doliatus coccineus: Davis, N. S., and Frank L. Rice. 1883. List of Batrachia and Reptilia of Illinois. Bulletin of the Chicago Academy of Sciences 1(3):25–32); Scarlet Snake (Cemophora coccine: Stejneger, Leonhard H. 1895. The poisonous snakes of North America. Annual Report of the United States National Museum 1893(2):337-487); Red King Snake (Ophibolus doliatus coccineus: Brimley, Clement S. 1915. List of reptiles and amphibians of North Carolina. Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society 30(4):195-206); Scarlet Snake (Cemophora coccinea: Schmidt, Karl Peterson and D. D. Davis. 1941. Field Book of Snakes of the United States and Canada. C.P. Putnam and Sons, New York. 365pp.);

Taxon Links:

  
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
  
The Reptile Database
  
NatureServe
  
iNaturalist
  
GenBank
  
USGS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

Selected References:
1788 Blumenbach, Johann F. Neue Beobachtungen I. Beytrag zur Naturgeschichte der Schlangen. [New observations I. Contribution to the natural history of snakes.] Magazin für das Neueste aus der Physik und Naturgeschichte [Magazine for the latest in physics and natural history] 5(1):1-13
1958 Minton, Sherman A., Jr. and H. B. Bechtel. Another Indiana record of Cemophora coccinea and a note on egg-eating. Copeia 1958(1):47
1967 Williams, Kenneth L. and Larry David Wilson. A review of the colubrid snake genus Cemophora Cope. Tulane Studies in Zoology and Botany 13(4):103-124
1972 Nelson, David H. and J. Whitfield Gibbons. Ecology, abundance and seasonal activity of the scarlet snake, Cemophora coccinea. Copeia 1972(3):582-584
1985 Williams, Kenneth L. Cemophora, C. coccinea. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (374):1-4
1991 Collins, Joseph T. Viewpoint: A new taxonomic arrangement for some North American amphibins and reptiles Herpetological Review 22(2):42-43
2014 Crother, Brian I. The bold taxonomic hypotheses of Collins (1991): 23 years later. Herpetological Review 45(2):268-272
2017 Weinell, Jeffrey L. and Christopher C. Austin. Refugia and speciation in North American Scarlet Snakes (Cemophora). Journal of Herpetology 51(1):161-171
2018 Dahn, Hollis A., Jason L. Strickland, Alejandra Osorio, Timothy J. Colston, and Christopher L. Parkinson. Hidden diversity within the depauperate genera of the snake tribe Lampropeltini (Serpentes, Colubridae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 129(2018):214-225

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Sunday 27 April 2025 12:04 CT