well, as I find more Oxybelis I can't help but come to the conclusion that they are very adaptable to any micro-enviroment within their range. I don't think their geographic range is limited by habitat but more by meteorlogical factors (perhaps frost zones?)as there is an awfull lot if identical habitat throughout southern Az. that they do not inhabit (same for Gyalopion quadrangulare).



At one time I would have said that they were pretty much limited to trees as all the snakes I found were in dominant evergreen oaks surrounded by smaller satellite trees. They also seemed more common in the trees on the ridglines as opposed to those in the canyon bottoms. I have climbed the home trees occupied by large adults and found numerous shed skins glued to the upper surfaces of the branches indicating that these snakes were spending a lot of time in these particular trees. This also coincided with a study done on this species in Belize where the study snakes had very small ranges on the horizontal plane but made up for it by having large ranges on the vertical plane.



I recent years we (Brendan, Rich L. and I) have found them to seem to be even more common (possibly biased due to it being easier to locate individuals in said micro-habitat)in the low growth and in areas much like Frank has shown us. I have watched them cruise the ground like a whipsnake and also flee like a whipsnake through the brush. I also think MANY people have seen them flying across the ground and thru the brush and simply wrote them off as Masticophis, even when they were looking for Oxybelis. My personal feeling at this point in time is that these snakes occupy all of these micro-enviroments and seem to be equally well adapted to both tree life and terrestrial life. Perhaps there is competition for range/territory with some snakes getting treed areas while others settle for scrub. I do know from keeping various Oxybelis for the last 20 years that they are as individual as people and each has his/her own habits and quirks. Some snakes always sleep amidst their branches, some always spend the night under the rocks on the cage floor. I could easily picture individuals hiding in the bases of agaves and sotol or under rocks. Back in the day when I used to hunt the trees exclusively for this species I would find Masticophis bilineatus snoozing amongst the branches in equal numbers to Oxybelis, but I don't know of anyone who would call trees the primary habitat of Masticophis. On the other hand, for me Oxybelis outnumbers Masticophis almost two to one on eh ground. Go figure.



Rich

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