Meet Our Animals

Corn Snake

Elaphe guttata guttata

Name and Personal History:
Sid: He is the beautiful red one. We adopted him in 2002 from an Irish nanny of one of our students, who bought him at a pet store. He was about a year-and-a-half old at the time.
We have three other Corn snakes: Boomerage, Jake, and Chili.

Native Habitat:
Corn snakes are found just about anywhere, from Miami to the Great Plains. Most of the ‘pet’ Corn snakes have been bred in captivity.

Environment:
Corn snakes prefer habitats such as overgrown fields, forest openings, and abandoned or seldom-used buildings, where their favorite food of mice and other small rodents is abundant.

Physical Characteristics:
Corn snakes come in many beautiful colors, and are hardy and docile. Relatively small, they rarely exceed five feet in length. They are active feeders, and tolerate a wide variety of environmental conditions.

Their common name supposedly comes from the days when they'd be found in "corn cribs" (corn storage buildings), feeding on the the rodents drawn there by the grains. Their ventral scales are also colored in a corn-like pattern.

Diet:
Hatchling corn snakes begin eating pinky mice, and progress up to adult mice once they are mature.