Everything you need to know about Ring-necked snakes! (Diadophis punctuatus) 

Years ago we had a family of ring necks for the summer. My entire attitude towards snakes was changed by these gentle creatures. They were happy for my boys to hold them. They would wrap themselves around the boys fingers. We had many wonderful experiences with them. As fall approached we let them go in my parents compost pile. It was right beside our woods, so we felt they would have everything they needed. After that mom and dad would see ring necks every summer. We are sure they were their children and grandchildren.

Such amazing little snakes! Thank you for bringing a little nature to my door :)

I found one of these in my bathroom this morning. Hes only about 5 inches long. Tried to release him outside and he just sat there for 2 hours. Brought him back in for warmth and debating keeping him. Thanks for all this great info.

They are such living gems. Real beauties. Had them as pets years ago.

I just found one a couple of weeks ago, in our basement, in the burbs of Manassas, Va. Very calm, sweet fella. Thank you for telling us more about them. Ours did not spray, in spite of being handled. I set him free outside, after taking a few photos. Fascinating nature in this area....

Today while doing gardening I found a tiny little northern ring neck. I really love how calm they can be with you. Hung out with little buddy for a bit then released into my back woods. Ty for this video, my mom was with me so I'm sending this link to her so she can learn too!

Back when I was a Scout, I saw a tiny black snake with a red ring on it's neck. I saw it for a few seconds before it instantly slithered into a hole. Now I finally know what species it was.

My husband was on the tractor pulling logs up the hill above the creek on our farm. I was moving some brush along the bank and came across a big nest of the little ring necks in a damp clump of debris. About 30 came rushing out, heading down to the water. He came to see what I had discovered and saw the last few slipping away, said, “Honey, I didn’t know we had Ring Necked snakes this far north!” This was southern Ohio; he was from Kentucky. And our little cache of snakes had white bellies and white solid neckrings. They were Precious !!!

I love the Florida Ringneck! I caught a gorgeous specimen in our pool when I visited Florida and rented a house with pool.

I just caught a baby Ring-neck in my front yard. He made no attempts at all to bite me. I also did a quick video then I released him into the woods just beyond my back yard. Thank you for educating me even further on them.

Excellent informative video! Great detail. I found one by chance in my yard, had no clue what it was. Always nice to be surprised by a living thing you didn’t know existed- so nearby! I was thrilled, it was like finding a mythical creature. It was so lovely with its pewter colour and dainty collar! It compels me even more to maintain a natural yard, leave the leaf litter and fallen logs... even in urban areas! You never know what might take up residence!!👍🏻 🐍 snakes are awesome! 😊

Used to see these near our house. Ring-necks and gartersnakes actually helped me get over the anxiety I had about snakes. Great video✊🏾

Eagle Scout, and lover of nature, I’ve always loved these snakes, and was trying to find more info on them and stumbled across your page! I’m from Radford VA, my family from Galax, and I was thrilled to see a video do so well from a local! Keep up the good work, amazing video! Much love from the blue ridge mountains

i found one a few days ago and caught it. days of research in, i decide to come to youtube, and 47 seconds in i can tell im gonna know everything i need to by the end of this. thank you sir.

Thanks Frank, I'm just outside of Floyd and have seen two of them this year so far and they are just beautiful little creatures. Really appreciate the insight.

Thank you for the information! I just found one of these little guys for the very first time today and wanted to learn more. I had never seen a snake so tiny before! He allowed me to handle him and even seemed curious about me. They really are quite nice little snakes.

Most informative! I enjoyed your video very much. I've seen these little guys many times in the past and was always curious about them. Thanks for telling me about them.

I found a Northern Ring-necked near me (Eastern Ontario) last night, and then my two young kids (7 and 5) and I watched your video to learn about what we found. Thank you! They loved it.

Really good video! So informative. My boyfriend just found a tiny little ringneck snake in our yard and gave him some time to run off before continuing to mow. Love seeing cute little snakes in our yard! Lots of these and garter snakes :)

Another great lesson. Thank you for the goodness of nature.

Thank you so much! Just found a southern ring neck so pretty! Almost fully grown based on the size you gave! Love all the info!

My favorite snake. They are great to catch in order to teach your children about snakes. We caught one yesterday and studied him for about an hour. Then we put him back at his rock in our flowerbed. We hope to see him again this summer. We have northerns here in southern West Virginia.

This morning my 5 y.o. daughter saw a Northern Ringneck snake dead in the road. She was curious and even touched it. She wanted to learn more about her friend. So we found and watched your excellent video. We are also in Floyd County so we subscribed and will explore more videos. Thank you!

saw and handled my first one today! I found him in the manure pile, out of all places! so neat! thank you for sharing your education!

Your video is so put together and great

Great video!! And I love your intro it’s so fun

10:08 just found one of these on my kitchen floor in Southern CA. I have two cats and a senior black lab, so I wanted to get it out of the house and back to nature ASAP. It looked like a large worm, and it wasn't until it curled up the back of its tail and flashed the orange at me that I realized it was a snake. I did not notice a ring around its neck, but everything else checked out. I gently picked it up by its tail and put it in a tall plastic cup, which I partially covered until I released the little guy in the garden. He eventually slithered away into the bushes -- a much safer place for him methinks!

Frank this was a wonderful video! thanks so much for helping me decide whether I should get one or not.

So dope love ur positivity and respect for nature i subed and liked👍👍

Thank you for this video. I just watched with my 5 year old granddaughter and she really enjoyed your little snake. We live in the Appalachian mountains as well and love to run across these little snakes.

Thank you for educating us! With your video we were able to identify a ringneck snake in our back yard and know that it isn’t harmful.

Thank you for the info! We just found a Northern Ringneck in our yard in NJ and it was so helpful to identify and learn about this little guy!

I am in Florida and when going out to pull weeds this Itty bitty little guy came out and scared the hell out of me. I had never seen or heard of this species of snake before so finding your video was very helpful. Thank you. 😊

Thank you for your informative video. I just found a little baby ringneck snake on my street. (It was sunning or playing dead) It did seem to wake up and open its mouth and started moving more. I put it back in the woods here in Va Beach, VA. Such a pretty little snake! Thank you for such helpful info!

These snakes are lovely. When I was a kid in the 1960s in semi-rural Northern California I never saw them, but boys were always bringing them in to our school classrooms for a few days, and I really liked the attractive smooth coloring and their docility when handled. Their parts where this one is yellow were always a very beautiful bright orange though, sometimes practically pushing it into nearly scarlet. The only one I ever found loose outside was @ 25 years ago, and 300 miles down the coast around Santa Barbara. It was the largest I'd ever seen, I think it was even a bit larger than yours. I was surprised to know they grew that large, I guess all of the earlier ones I'd seen were cute little juveniles. This one had the same yellow coloring as yours also, no orange. I wanted to pick it up to show my son who was back at camp, and when I reached for it it snapped at me a couple times, and quickly took off while I tried to keep up, and grab it! It was really fast!! Luckily my son came along soon after I'd quit chasing it, I found it again and I was able to show him. I'd forgotten the stories I'd heard about the smelly liquid it probably would've let me have if I'd caught it. Now I'm glad I didn't!

Thank you sir! I have found the Southern Ringneck in Northern Arkansas. Beautiful colors underneath, all the way to a deep red!

Deadly and cute. Fascinating video! ☺️

Thank you for posting this video. I just had one of these on my stairs in my backyard. I’d never seen one before.

I ran across one of these little guys tonight on my walk. It was almost dark and he was crossing the path. I had never seen one before, didn't even know they existed. Google brought me to your video. Such a cute little fella.

I’m so happy I can find a video like this now I get to learn so much about ring neck snakes thanks I’m also getting a pet ring neck snake so thanks for everything ❤❤❤❤

This was extremely helpful. Thank you!

Found a really tiny red ring neck snake today!! He was under a block outside of our lanai in our backyard. We live in central Florida so we see a lot of different wildlife (other than alligators) Thank you for the information on these little creatures, it is nice to know he is harmless to us and our pets so we just gently put the rock back and let him be…

My cat just found a very small ringneck in our basement this morning! Luckily I was able to separate them and thanks to the ring was able to quickly identify it and catch it to release in the woods behind the house. Beautiful little snake but I was pretty freaked out before I saw the markings because I wasn't sure what my cat was trying to catch, or if it could hurt him. Thanks for this fantastic information!

Thank you for this video. I just found one of these guys in my garden today. I’m in NC.

Thank you so much for all this information provided in this video. I just subscribed and will be checking out more of your videos. I just found a small ( unfortunately dead) snake in my yard and now I know it was a Southern Ring neck. I own a small 10acre farm in middle south GA and I love discovering all the wildlife on my property. This little snake I found right in our yard just 10 feet from the house. It was deceased and appeared to have been bitten on it's red tail, the tail was barely still attached. I have a feeling one of my barn cats must have hunted the poor little snake by the looks of the bite marks. We have several large snakes underneath our house in the work shop area and crawl space section, that we co-habitate peacefully with. We've never seen these snakes, but there are at least 20+ snake skins that have accumulated over the years, in various sizes, some quite big. We don't bother them and they don't bother us or our cats, dogs and horses. And we've never had any issues with mice or signs of rodents underneath our house or in the barn where other snakes live out of sight. It's mutually beneficial for all of us in my opinion. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Hopefully we'll be lucky enough to see a live Southern Ringneck in the near future unharmed and healthy living it's best snake life!

Just caught a northern ringneck in the top WV panhandle while weedwacking thankfully I spotted him before weedwacker did. Such a cool little snake. Thanks for the video

Here cause I found one of these guys in my backyard, super cute little guy. Great video!

My husband just found one of the southern ones in my kitchen in rural Arkansas! Thanks for this information!

Hi, I just wanted to say thank you for this video! I was moving a log pile in my yard and saw this snake inside the bark of a log. I got on here to find out what it was, I subscribed. Very informative. I'll be checking out more videos on your channel now! ~middle of nowhere Pennsylvania

Great video! My son and I came across one pulling weeds. Clicked on your video and watched it together. Thanks

My favorite buddy to come across in the woods. And that's a big one you got there.

You described the southern ring neck to a tee. I found one here in Florida but it was, unfortunately dead. I did take a picture of it . They are so beautiful!

Love your videos

Thanks for this video. We found a very small northern in our kitchen today.

God bless man, great video

Someone shared this on a herp website on facebook. New subscriber.

ha, I just found a baby one,6” or so, in my garage. Great little video about them. I am in Georgia and I’ve never seen the ring neck before. I will be sure to let him go back out in the yard.

Beautiful snake.

Nice little snakes. I found one while weeding above my stone wall. I picked him or her up gently, had a good look and interaction and then let them go back back to where they could continue to live a nice life.

We have these here in South Carolina and I love them, they are so cute.

I do termite inspection. I work in south east Missouri area. I've encountered both northern and southern Ring Necks. I saw one that had bright yellow faded into bright orangeish red with black spots and the ring was dark orange. Unfortunately I think it was dying cause it was belly up. I've found these little guys in termite stations before. I believe it was sleeping? I opened the cap and there it was coiled up. That one was a northern though. I just gave it a very gentle tap with my tool and it slithered down into the station and went out the opening of the side of the trap. Thanks for the information buddy! I liked your black snake video too. I run into them all the time.

That was a very enjoyable video to watch, and very informative. I’ve only come across some dead ring-necked babies in a cabin, but I’ve never seen a live specimen. I see rat snakes and garter snakes often in Hampshire County, West Virginia, but no ring-neckers. Hopefully I come across one at some point. Cheers!

Just saw a southern ringneck in my backyard, it scared the heck out of me and I went to look it up right away ty for the vid

Such a cute little snake

Thank you for sharing found one in my garden and wanted to know what it was. It was a Northern Ringneck very beautiful. I'm here in Rock Hill SC

I'm getting one of these little guys soon so thank you for teaching me a bit more about them! It helped a lot!

Beautiful snake 😍

Thank you Frank!

I saw and photographed a Northern Ring-Necked Snake on the Chickasaw Bluffs hiking trail in Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park in Shelby County/Millington, TN (just north of Memphis, TN) on March 13, 2024. Ring-Necked Snakes are beautiful snakes!!! 🐍🐍🐍

Thinks you for the information about ring neck snakes a lot

I live near Huntington, WV and we have northern ring-necks here. I chanced upon on in my yard a couple years ago, and found one sunning itself on the road yesterday while I was out for a walk on a country road. I picked up a stick and guided him back into the leaves, as it was the time of day people are coming home from work and several cars had passed me. Pretty little thing, about a foot long.

I just saved one of these little fellas from my neighbor's cat. I thought he had caught himself a lizard. Nope! Young ring-neck snake. I quickly rescued them and shooed them back underground lol. I compensated the neighbor's cat with a treat, too. :D

In very educational video very nice very well done

I have a northern ring snake 🐍 and he’s so cute 🥰

Thank you for your video I just save one from my pool the ring neck was so orange and beautiful, now I know more about it I didn't take pictures because I didn't know that specie before, now I know next time I can release the snake for the natural habitat more easily

I've caught tnem in PA, and in Calif. The ones out west have an orange belly and ring, beautiful little snakes.

They are so beautiful, the northern species especially. I only find ringnecks in places with lots of redback and two-lined salamanders because that's their favorite food.

Hello, thank you for your video. Unfortunately, my first encounter with a Ring-necked snake was unhappy for the snake. 😢 My cat just barfed him up. Eww! I sent a picture to a friend and she told me the name of the snake so I began my search and found your video. 🐱 I'm sure my cat now feels better than he did after eating a foul smelling snake. Poor little snake... good grief! Thank you again for your video.

I have a family of ring necks that live in the woods behind my house and in my backyard. In fact when I was taking my dog out for her breakfast, I found a little baby around 4 inches in length. not the first one I've found here either. they are amazing little snakes and so docile.

Found a Southern in Citrus County Florida, beautiful and surprisingly curious and friendly snake!! Mines quite a bit smaller so I figure he's a relatively young snake.

These are my favorite snakes in the entire world!

Saw one of these at dusk one night. It was moving towards the grass across the sidewalk. It was so tiny it fit in the tiny space between sidewalk tiles. It was as short as my pinkie finger and i first thought it was a worm until it flicked its tounge and i noticed its peepers. I took it upon myself as my duty to see it made it across safely.

This morning I found a tiny ring neck snake as I were feeding deer corn. It was about 6” inches long smaller around than a pencil with a yellow ring. I didn’t disturb it only observed it a while. Never seen one here before in my 72 year. It was jet black, I never saw its belly. That was neat!

Had a little southern variety in my store this morning. Got him safely back outside.

I saw my first one under the power lines in the Massachusetts Bioreserve -- probably in Fall River at that point in my walk.

This is a new snake species to me. Very colorful.

Thank you for the info! My cat has brought in three in one week.

I saw one of these at Frozen Head State Park, first time ever thought it was cool looking snake, I did not bother it just admired the beautiful creature.

I found one of these in my pool in here in South Florida, He was very tired from trying to get out of the pool. The one i found had a bright orange-red ring fully around his neck and and no spots on his belly. After a quick internet search i was surprised to learn it was a Northern Ring-Necked Snake because I'm about as far south as you can get. After several minutes of trying to catch him he finally was just too tired to move anymore and he let me pick him up. I moved him over to the bushes where he just sat there for a few minutes catching his breath and then nodded his head which i perceived as him thanking me, and slowly slid away.

Loved this, appreciate the content!

ijust found one today, didnt know what it was, they're so beautiful.

Came across one of these on my walk today crossing the path!

I'm in Fluvanna County, VA and for the past 15 or so years, in July or August, I've gone down to the English basement of my 1835 house to find baby ring necked snakes wandering around on the brick floor. They are so tiny!!! They get caught in the spider webs and I very carefully clean them off and release them in the woods. (I've tried vacuuming up the webs, but then I can't catch them.) I have no idea how they get in, but being an old house there must be some kind of crevice somewhere. It usually takes a couple weeks of checking every day to find them all. There used to be about 8 - 12 annually , but more females must have joined in (I've read that they sometimes lay eggs communally) because the number has increased over the years. Last year I found 37. I love to watch them when I release them. It's amazing how it takes only a moment for them to find a passage down under the leaves. I worry about what will happen after I move. I can't find how they get in and I doubt the next owners will be willing to catch and release them. Thanks for the video and the site. I appreciate it very much.

Just found one in my living room, a lil baby one! Maybe about 5-6 inches in length. I managed to capture it and have it inside a big glass jar with a perforated lid while I debate whether to try and keep it as a pet or set it free. Thanks for the video!

My cat just brought in a baby northern ring neck just a few hours. I got some good time looking at it and held it once but it was far to skiddish to stay put so I had to say by but it was amazing just how soft it was!

What a cool snake thanks for the incredible info

Southern ring neck in oklahoma. Beautiful cool snake.

I’ve found them in my yard. Cute little snake.

Found a small one in my garage today. Thought it was an earthworm at first. Thanks for the knowledge.

I live in Windsor, Virginia, kinda close to the coast. I have Ringnecks all over my property. Just found one in my trash can. They are all Northern.