Red-bellied Racer
Encyclopedia
The Red-bellied Racer (Alsophis rufiventris) is a species 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 is endemic to the Lesser Antilles
Lesser Antilles
The Lesser Antilles are a long, partly volcanic island arc in the Western Hemisphere. Most of its islands form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, with the remainder located in the southern Caribbean just north of South America...
in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
, where it is found on the islands of Saba, Sint Eustatius, Saint Kitts
Saint Kitts
Saint Kitts Saint Kitts Saint Kitts (also known more formally as Saint Christopher Island (Saint-Christophe in French) is an island in the West Indies. The west side of the island borders the Caribbean Sea, and the eastern coast faces the Atlantic Ocean...
, and Nevis
Nevis
Nevis is an island in the Caribbean Sea, located near the northern end of the Lesser Antilles archipelago, about 350 km east-southeast of Puerto Rico and 80 km west of Antigua. The 93 km² island is part of the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain of the West Indies...
.
Males have black-bordered blotches that transition into a dark mid-dorsal stripe towards the posterior. Females have a series of middorsal streaks and smudges that fade towards the posterior.
Other common name
Common name
A common name of a taxon or organism is a name in general use within a community; it is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism...
s include the Saba Racer and the Orange-bellied Racer.
External links
- Alsophis rufiventris at the Encyclopedia of LifeEncyclopedia of LifeThe Encyclopedia of Life is a free, online collaborative encyclopedia intended to document all of the 1.9 million living species known to science. It is compiled from existing databases and from contributions by experts and non-experts throughout the world...
- Alsophis rufiventris at the Reptile Database