We thought these two gopher snakes were mating, but it turned out to be just our dirty minds. After some scientists among our Instagram following commented that this looked more like two males, we shared the video with UCSB Prof. Sam Sweet, who has more focused experience with local reptiles (our curator is a generalist, who—as noted in our previous post—has to do duty on all vertebrates, from the tiniest frogs to the largest whales). Prof. Sweet said “It's male combat. The two snakes are almost

Fox vs. Snake Showdown! The Santa Cruz Island gopher snake is found only on Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa Islands. Compared to its mainland counterpart, the Pacific gopher snake, which can grow up to 7 feet long, the Santa Cruz Island gopher snake is much smaller, rarely exceeding 3 feet long. When provoked or threatened, the Island gopher snake will elevate and inflate itself to look bigger and sometimes shake its tail back and forth, making a buzzing noise like a rattlesnake. Island gopher snakes