- Animals
- ›Chordates
- ›Vertebrates
- ›Reptiles
- ›Snakes and Lizards
- ›Snakes
- ›Colubrid Snakes
- ›Colubrine Snakes
- ›Elaphe
Steppe Ratsnake
Elaphe dione
Elaphe dione, commonly known as Dione's rat snake, the steppe rat snake, or the steppes rat snake, is a species of snake in the family Colubridae. The species is native to Asia and Eastern Europe. There are no subspecies that are recognized as being valid. A large specimen from Putyatin Island measured up to 90 cm (3.0 ft) in length.
From the article Steppe rat snake on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Range & habitat
E. dione is found in eastern Ukraine, southern and southeastern Russia, Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia, parts of China, and Korea. It is found in a wide variety of habitats including forest, shrubland, grassland, rocky areas, desert, freshwater wetlands, and disturbed areas, at altitudes from sea level to 3,580 m (2.22 mi).
Wikipedia: “Habitat”
What it does
An adult female mates with two or more males, sometimes copulating with two males at the same time. E. dione is oviparous, and adult females lay a clutch of 3–15 eggs in July or August, though some can lay a clutch of up to 24 eggs.
Wikipedia: “Behavior”
In human culture
The specific name, dione, refers to the Greek mythological figure Dione who was the mother of Aphrodite.
Wikipedia: “Etymology”
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Elaphe dione in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 30282.