Kingsnakes are a type of colubrid

Colubrid

A colubrid is a member of the snake family Colubridae. This broad classification of snakes includes about two-thirds of all snake species on earth. The earliest species of the snake family date back to the Oligocene epoch. With 304 genera and 1,938 species, Colubridae is the largest snake family...

 snake

Snake

Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...

 that are members of the Lampropeltis genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

, which also includes the milk snake

Milk Snake

The milk snake or milksnake is a species of king snake. There are 25 subspecies among the milk snakes, including the commonly named scarlet kingsnake...

 along with another four species and 45 sub-species.

Lampropeltis means "shiny shield" (from Greek λαμπρος, "shine" + πελτα, "small shield"), a name given to them in reference to their dorsal scales. The majority of kingsnakes have quite vibrant patterns on their skin.