Given your description and the location, it was probably a Gopher Snake. If you ever feel the impulse to grab one, though, take a close look: rattlesnakes can look pretty similar if you're not used to IDing snakes, and in fact, Gopher Snakes have been known to imitate rattlesnakes by "rattling" their rattle-less tails against dry grass and leaf litter, and by rearing up, hissing, and flattening their head into a triangular, viper-ish shape. So. Look for the rattle.
Kay, it's an error. When we did our initial import of names from the Catalogue of Life, some had errors (from CoL), while I believe others got mangled in transition, which is what I think happened to this one. I believe Cape Gopher Snake is the name of a subspecies, possibly Pituophis c. vertibralis. I've just added a ticket to our bug tracking system to look into this problem. Thanks for pointing it out.
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Given your description and the location, it was probably a Gopher Snake. If you ever feel the impulse to grab one, though, take a close look: rattlesnakes can look pretty similar if you're not used to IDing snakes, and in fact, Gopher Snakes have been known to imitate rattlesnakes by "rattling" their rattle-less tails against dry grass and leaf litter, and by rearing up, hissing, and flattening their head into a triangular, viper-ish shape. So. Look for the rattle.
From the CalHerps website, I find the common name as Pacific Gopher Snake. Where did "Cape" Gopher Snake come from?
Kay, it's an error. When we did our initial import of names from the Catalogue of Life, some had errors (from CoL), while I believe others got mangled in transition, which is what I think happened to this one. I believe Cape Gopher Snake is the name of a subspecies, possibly Pituophis c. vertibralis. I've just added a ticket to our bug tracking system to look into this problem. Thanks for pointing it out.
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