bull snake question

[rwg]

I have a few questions. First, taxonomy: Mostly I see "bull snake" listed as "pituphis melanoleucus". Sometimes I see it listed as "pituophis melanoleucus catenifer", and also sometimes as "pituophis catenifer". The nicest site for pituophis taxonomy breakdown I have found (type "the pituophis page" in google) lists P melanoleucus as the Eastern Pine, and has bull snake listed as P catenifer sayi...a sub-species of gopher snake so they say. So, which is it?

Secondly, are they, or are they not constrictors. Opinions differ depending on source.

Thanks,
Roy G

[Scales Zoo]

Pituophis catenifer sayi, If I am not mistaken.

And your second question is interesting. Some people only refer to boas and pythons as constrictors, but for practical purposes, many of the bullsnakes we had did use constriction to secure prey. They didn't sit and wait for it to die, like other snakes, they would just wait until it held still enough for them to eat, they are ravenous.

Sometimes, they would just grab a live food item, parade it around, bang it into things, over power it and eat it. In the wild, they will pin 2 or 3 gophers to the side of a gopher hole, and can hold onto with it's coils until they are ready to eat that one.

Of course, we only fed live food to bullsnakes that need rehabilitation - we feed frozen thawed to our current bullsnake collection.

Ryan

[rwg]

Do they ever wrap and squeeze like a corn snake? I've only seen bulls feeding on dead prey before, and it's always been just bite and swallow.

[vanderkm]

They will definately wrap and squeeze - ours did especially with larger prey, even frozen thawed. With smaller prey it was more often the 'bite to restrain and then push against the side of the tub' method. Like Ryan says - not much time wasted though - as soon as they find the nose (or sometimes before) the start to swallow - ours would eat mice sideways from the middle of the back - just bend it and push the ends together as they swollowed. They do love to eat!

mary v.

[Vanan]

As far as constriction, yes they do constrict, but more than often they use the method described by Ryan. It's more like 'pinning' and squishing the prey against something and 'winding' it. They don't care much for killing prey before eating. As long as it's somewhat subdued, down the hatch it goes.

As for taxonomy, Ryan's right. Here's a link to the most current names to Pituophis species.

Pituophis page (http://www.kingsnake-com/pituophis/species.html)

Just change the "-" to "." to access the page. :)