Louisiana Pine Snake

The Louisiana pinesnake (Pitouphis ruthveni) is an egg-laying, non-venomous constrictor of western and central Louisiana and eastern Texas. It spends most of its time underground in the burrows of Baird’s pocket gophers which are an essential part of its habitat. We listed the Louisiana pinesnake as threatened in 2018 because it may become endangered soon.

The Louisiana pinesnake depends on the Baird’s pocket gopher as a source of food, and it uses the gopher’s burrows. These gophers relied on plants that grow on the forest floor in the sandy soils typical of open canopy longleaf pine forests in the past. People mostly reduced this type of habitat by the 1930s, and it rarely regenerated naturally. The remaining longleaf pine ecosystem across the Louisiana pinesnake and Baird’s pocket gopher range is broken up and greatly reduced from its historic extent.  

Because the remaining Louisiana pinesnake populations are small, they are more vulnerable to deadly events like extreme weather and disease which could also remove breeding snakes from populations. When populations of the snake become too small and isolated, the genes become too similar, and this could reduce their ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions.

The effects of climate change climate change
Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.

Learn more about climate change , such as extreme weather events, can also impact and reduce the Louisiana pinesnake’s essential longleaf pine habitat.