The Japanese rat snake is a harmless climbing snake native to Japan; it doesn't live in the wild in the U.S. At 3–6.5 ft (1–2 m) long, it's the largest snake in Japan outside the far southern islands.
Appearance
- Appearance
- Adults are olive to greenish or bluish, and many show four faint dark stripes down the back. Young snakes look very different: gray with ladder-like brown blotches.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Forests
- Farmland
- Around houses
- Range
- Native to Japan's main islands (Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu), many offshore islands, and Kunashir Island (administered by Russia). It is absent from the Amami and Okinawa islands. It is not found wild in North America.
- Preferred conditions
- Lives in forests, farm fields, and around homes, and does well even in towns. It often moves into attics and storehouses.
Behavior
- Diet
- Eats rodents, birds, and eggs, and often raids nests. Young snakes also take frogs and lizards. It squeezes larger prey before swallowing.
- Activity
- Mostly active by day and an excellent climber; ridged belly scales let it go straight up tree trunks and walls. It for three to four months in winter.
Life cycle
- Breeding season
- Mates in spring (May–June) and lays eggs in summer (July–August).
- Clutch size
- 4–17 eggs
- Incubation
- Eggs hatch in about 2 months.
Cautions
- Cautions
- Nonvenomous and generally mild-tempered. When handled roughly it releases a foul-smelling musk.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- LCLeast ConcernLow risk of extinction
Culture and stories
- Culture and stories
- Its Japanese name, aodaishō, means "blue general," for its color and size.
- Japanese farmers valued it for catching rats. A wild population of white (albino) rat snakes in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, is revered as a messenger of the gods and protected as a national natural monument in Japan.
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