10/14/2026
This is a long one so it's coming in three parts;
In October 2025 I went to the Tinley Park reptile show and picked up “Natural History of the Northern Pinesnake” and upon reading it I instantly became obsessed with pinesnakes, especially northern and black, recently gaining a large interest in Florida pines as well. Oh, and did I mention the yellow, burgundy and blue subspecies in Mexico? So many pines, so little time.
Since reading that book, listening to Bob Zappalorti on a few podcasts and learning more about their natural history, I've grown to really be fascinated with snakes of this genus- particularly the eastern clade. It's really fascinating to me how similar of a lifestyle they share with rat snakes- only spending most of their time under ground instead of in trees. Female pines even excavate their own nests in sand, even making a chamber around the egg mass to support the babies before they dig themselves out! “Look ma! No hands!”
Prior to the industrial revolution, the southeastern coastal plain of the United States, spanning from New Jersey and the Carolinas, parts of Kentucky, though the Gulf of Mexico, all the way to eastern Texas was largely longleaf pine habitat with well-drained sandy soil, sparse vegetation, and the dominant tree being the longleaf pine. A tall, skinny pine tree with few, thin, scraggly branches (think Charlie Brown Christmas tree) but requires a lot of intense sunlight to grow. These open canopies allow for bright sunlight to pe*****te to the forest floor, providing light to life on the ground and even just beneath it. Everything from plants literally eating the sunlight to the “Emperor of the forest”- an eastern indigo snake with a single coil of it's glossy black body hanging out from underneath a decaying palmetto frond and the gopher tortoise peeking it's head out of it's burrow. The warm sand helps incubate the pinesnake eggs that the mother risked her life to make, digging for hours, using the specialized scale on her nose as a shovel- only without hands. The average lifespan of a male pinesnake in the wild is 26 years, but for females it's 16. Largely because they're more exposed to birds and other predators while digging their nests like this. They also have an incredible sense of smell, returning to the same area, and sometimes digging up the same nest from the year prior and discarding old eggshells as she re-escavates! The first rain after the eggs are laid closes the opening of the burrow and seals the chamber. Sometimes with other species sharing nests dug by the pine, including endangered southern hognosed snakes and even other pines!
During spring, these ecosystems would be engulfed in flames, as spring thunderstorms strike and cause wildlife. The fire burns through much of the ecosystem, allowing whatever was decaying plant litter from the previous year to be turned to ash and quickly recycled, allowing for new life to be reborn from the ashes. The trees actually produce a water-proof resin around their seeds that has to get burned off in order for the seeds to germinate and grow. Without fire, the canopy closes and the animals that rely on the habitat either go extinct because they can't survive the habitat that forms next or move to more suitable habitat- if there is any. Just look at the range map of a Louisiana pinesnake, I'm personally amazed they're still around at all!
