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Does anyone know where I can find specific diet info of wild kingsnakes (mainly L. g. getula, L. g. nigra, and L. g. holbrooki)? I am trying to find a breakdown of the diet. ie what percentage is snakes, mammals, bird/eggs etc... I would also like to know what percentage of the snake diet are venomous snakes.

Does anyone know of a good paper or book with this kind of info?

Carl Ernst's snakes of Eastern North America summarizes much of the known research for eastern snakes and generally summarizes the percentages of diets for each species. I don't know if they have it broken down by subspecies, but it is a good place to start.
The Wright's two volume book on snakes would also have this stuff.
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Chris Harrison

There is a great book that covers all speices diets in each write up in the book. Unfortunetly I can't remember the name and I know it is high priced. It is a book on North Carolina speices and I have only seen it in hardcover. It is a great book on East Coast Reptiles as N Carolina has most of the east coast reptiles in the state. If I get time I will check Amazon.com or something and see if I recongnize the cover.
Later Jason

I just looked on Amazon.com and there is no pic of the cover but I believe it is the right book . It is authored by Palmer.
Thanks Jason

snakes being opertunistic feeders i think it would be about the food avail. because once a snake has eatten he will refuse his favorite meal until hungry again.Chris.......

Until you read a account of large populations gut contents you have no idea what a snake will eat. The amount of insects found in a wide variety of snake amazed me. Granted it could be from the guts of the other animals in the snakes gut but you can't say that without haveing first hand knowledge of the sankes examined if you know what I mean. Also the odd things like fish in a corn that you would not think of. If you have not ever read a account like this do your self a favor and find one. It eye opening.
Later Jason

gut examination is very interesting, yes. but the topic was wild kingsnake diet im saying its geographic and what food source is avail.as we all know kings eat a variety.
if we were talking about an isolated species such as a THIS ISLAND only species EVOLVED their food or prey would be the same its GEOGRAPHIC availability.
then its still possible that each individual may differ in preference one may like birds better than Rodents so on-so on. Chris

Actually the original post was about wild kings and the food they eat. Also the pecentages that they eat. You are 100% right that habitat and availablility are responseable for what they eat but I was responding to the direction of the original thread. Also I didn't mean any disrespect I just found gut content studies very interesting. I mean they show that pigmy rattlers eat alot of bugs and I always thought the ate mostly frogs. Stuff like that is really neat to me.
Later Jason

I realize that the diet will vary based on the location of the snake. I was just wondering if anyone knew of a study done on this and where it could be found.

The reason I wanted info on those three specific kings is I'm doing a project on Alabama Kingsnakes and was just wanting some basic numbers for diet preferences.

The books mentioned above should help
Jason