Habitat
Habitats include wet prairies, wet savannas and pastures, palmetto-pine flatwoods, swamps, hardwood-dominated floodplains, sandhills, mixed pine-hardwood forest, hilly second-growth forests, scrub pinewoods, borders of cypress ponds, vicinity of lakes and marshes, and along rice-field canals and roadside ditches, generally in moist or wet lowlands (Werler and Dixon 2000, Ernst and Ernst 2003). This snake is mainly terrestrial; it shelters under surface cover (logs, stumps, thickets, etc.) or in animal burrows. It swims well; rarely climbs into vegetation.
Ecology
In Florida, the maximum distance moved from the point of initial capture was 9-242 m (Hudnall 1979). Gravid females are mainly sedentary.
Sources of mortality include various raptors, mammalian carnivores, snake-eating snakes, habitat destruction, and automobiles (Ernst 1992).
Reproduction
Mating in nature has been observed in September. Litter size is 2-32 (usually 4-10); 2-11, mean about 6, in central Florida (Farrell et al., 1995, J. Herpetol. 29:21-27). Births occur mostly July-September (mainly August in central Florida) (Farrell et al.. loc. cit.). Newborns are common in southern Florida in July and August (Dalrymple et al., Copeia 1991:294-302). Two Texas litters were born in early to mid-August (Ford et al., 1990, Texas J. Sci. 42:355-368). In central Florida, 26% of females were gravid in two consecutive years, 42% were gravid in one of two consecutive years, and 32% were not gravid in either year (Farrell et al., loc. cit.).