THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Squamata (part-snakes)    Natricidae  

Florida Brownsnake
Storeria victa Hay, 1892
STOR-ur-ee-uh — VIK-tah

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 There are no current SSAR comments for this taxon.

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2025.07.08.09.07.12)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.05 MB

Province/State Distribution:
United States: Florida Georgia

Taxonomic Etymology:
The name is suggestive of conquest or victory.
Storeria — A patronym honoring David Humphreys Storer (1804–1891), an American physician and zoologist who made early contributions to the herpetology of New England.
victa — From Latin victus, “conquered” or “overcome.” The reasoning behind this specific epithet is not explicitly stated in the original description (Hay, 1892), and it may have been chosen arbitrarily, symbolically, or to distinguish it from dekayi. It is sometimes interpreted as “distinct” or “separated.”

First instance(s) of published English names:
Florida Brown Snake (Storeria victa: 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.); Florida Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi victa: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.);

Taxon Links:

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

Selected References:
1892 Hay, Oliver P. Descriptions of a supposed new species of Storeria from Florida, Storeria victa. Science 19(479):199
1939 Trapido, Harold. Studies on the Taxonomy and Natural History of the Snakes of the Genus Storeria in the United States and Canada. Thesis. Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. 100pp.
1944 Trapido, Harold. The snakes of the genus Storeria. American Midland Naturalist 31(1):1-84
1950 Neill, Wilfred T. The status of the Florida brown snake, Storeria victa. Copeia 1950(2):155-156
2012 Ernst, Carl H. Storeria. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (900):14
2016 Pyron, R. Alexander, Felisa W. Hsieh, Alan R. Lemmon, Emily M. Lemmon, and Catriona R. Hendry. Integrating phylogenomic and morphological data to assess candidate species-delimitation models in brown and red-bellied snakes (Storeria). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 177(4):1-13

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Friday 05 December 2025 16:57 CT