Elaphe quatuorlineata
Four lined snake (Elaphe quatuorlineata )
The four- lined snake (Elaphe quatuorlineata ) is a species of snake in the family of snakes.
Description
This large and powerful snake reaches a length of up to 2.40 meters. The body is pressed together, in cross-section is higher than wide. Young specimens look different from the adult animals, they are drawn on a gray ground color with dark spots of different shape and size. During the growth, the gray color gradually becomes brown above, and in place of the speckle pattern, two dark longitudinal stripes form on each side of the body. In the Eastern four- lined snake (Elaphe Sauromates ), which was formerly regarded as a subspecies, the spot drawing is not regressed.
On the sides of the four- lined snake is always brighter than on the back. From youth coloring only a black stripe from the eye is retained until the mouth.
Occurrence
It inhabits Italy from Tuscany and Umbria to the south to Sicily and large parts of South East Europe via Turkey and Ukraine to Western Kazakhstan, northern Iraq and Syria.
The four- lined snake preferred stony, with stock with bushes or sparse forests terrain. It climbs well and often climb bushes and trees. There she takes from birds' nests, but also squirrels fall victim to it. Otherwise, they captured especially at dusk mice, rats, moles, stoats and wild rabbits that are wrapped and strangled quickly after the bite.
During mating, the male holds the female with his teeth. The 6 to 16 eggs are laid in July. The young snakes appear in September and feed initially mainly of lizards.