THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Squamata (part)    Colubridae  

Great Plains Groundsnake
Sonora episcopa (Kennicott in Baird, 1859)

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 See comments under Sonora. The authority was corrected to reflect the name first appeared by Kennicott in a work by Baird.

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2024.02.01.13.35.12)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.84 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: Arkansas Colorado Kansas Missouri New Mexico Oklahoma Texas

First instance(s) of published English names:
Banded Miter Snake (Chionactis episcopus isozonus: Branson, Edwin B. 1904. Snakes of Kansas. University of Kansas Science Bulletin 2(13):353-430); Banded Ground Snake (Sonora semiannulata: Taylor, Edward H. 1929. A revised checklist of the snakes of Kansas. University of Kansas Science Bulletin 19(5):53-62); Great Plains Ground Snake (Sonora episcopa: 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.); Ground Snake (Sonora episcopa: 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:
1859 Kennicott, Robert. Lamprosomum episcopum. Pages in Pages 22, plate 28, figure 22. Emory, William H. Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey C. Wendell, Washington, D.C.. pp.
1859 Baird, Spencer F. Reptiles of the Boundary, in: Volume 2, pt. 2 United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, U.S. 34th Congress, 1st Session, Executive Document 108. 1-35pp.
1923 Ortenburger, Arthur I. The status of Sonora semiannulata and Sonora episcopa. Copeia 1923(120):79-81
1938 Stickel, William H. The snakes of the genus Sonora in the United States and Lower California. Copeia 1938(4):182-190
1943 Stickel, William H. The Mexican snakes of the genera Sonora and Chionactis with notes on the status of other colubrid genera. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 56:109-128
1979 Frost, Darrel R. and Thomas R. Van Devender. The relationship of the groundsnakes Sonora semiannulata and S. episcopa (Serpentes: Colubridae). Occasional Papers of the Museum of Zoology, Louisiana State University (52):1-9
1983 Frost, Darrel R. Sonora semiannulata Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (333):333.1-333.4
2012 Cox, Christian L. Phylogenetic systematics, populations genetics, and the evolution of color pattern polymorphism and coral snake mimicry in the snake genus Sonora. Dissertation. University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas. 159pp.
2013 Cox, Christian L. and Alison R. Davis Rabosky. Spatial and temporal drivers of phenotypic diversity in polymorphic snakes. The American Naturalist 182(2):E40-E57
2014 Cox, Christian L. and Paul T. Chippindale. Patterns of genetic diversity in the polymorphic ground snake (Sonora semiannulata). Genetica 142:361-370
2016 Davis Rabosky, Alison R., Christian L. Cox, Daniel L. Rabosky, Pascal O. Title, Iris A. Holmes, Anat Feldman, and Jimmy A. McGuire. Coral snakes predict the evolution of mimicry across New World snakes Nature Communications 7(11484):1-9
2018 Cox, Christian L., Alison R. Davis Rabosky, Iris A. Holmes , Jacobo Reyes-Velasco, Corey E. Roelke , Eric N. Smith , Oscar Flores-Villela , Jimmy A. McGuire and Jonathan A. Campbell. Synopsis and taxonomic revision of three genera in the snake tribe Sonorini. Journal of Natural History 52(13–16):945–988

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Saturday 26 April 2025 23:28 CT