I believe that the opposite is true...at least from my own personal experience with eastern kings. I would say that snakes, lizards, and turtle eggs are their preferred food sources and they will eat rodents or birds when given the opportunity. A few things lead me to this belief. First, the eastern king has such a small head that it is not as skilled at catching rodents as say, the black rat snake. Also, I always find eastern kings near a water source...usually one with a large turtle population... I have several dry, upland barn sites that have literally thousands of rodents where I find several black rat snakes, racers, and mole kings each year. Still haven't found an eastern king at one of those sites.



However, I've heard that outside of the Carolinas, eastern kings can be found farther from a water source. I haven't spent much time herping outside of NC, so I can't say for the entire range of L. getula.

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