The Mud snake (Farancia abacura) is a nonvenomous, semiaquatic snake native to the southeastern United States. This snake spends most of its time in the water but hibernates in cavities in soil or old tree stumps.
The upperside of the Mud snake is glossy black in color. The underside is red and black, and the red extends up the sides to form bars of reddish pink. Although, some have a completely black body with slightly lighter black spots instead of the common reddish colors. Its body is heavy and cylindrical in cross-section, and the short tail has a terminal spine. Females of this species are larger than males in total length.
Mud snakes are found in the southeastern United States, in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. They inhabit the edges of streams and cypress swamps, slow mud-bottomed streams, floodplains, drainage ditches, and among dense vegetation or underground debris.
Mud snakes are almost fully aquatic and rarely leave the water, except to lay eggs, hibernate, or during drought escape drying wetlands. They are active during the night and when hunting these snakes are known to use their sharply pointed tails to prod prey items; this behavior has led to the nickname "stinging snake", although their tail is not a stinger and cannot sting.
Mud snakes are carnivores. They prey mostly on giant aquatic salamanders, but also eat other amphibians.
Mud snakes are polygynous, meaning that males mate with more than one female. Breeding occurs in the spring, mostly in the months of April and May. Eight weeks after mating, the female lays 4 to 111 eggs in a nest dug out of moist soil, sometimes in alligator nests. She will remain with her eggs until they hatch, in the fall, usually September or October. Once hatched, the young are fully independent and are able to fend for themselves. They become reproductively mature at about 2.5 years of age.
There are no major threats facing Mud snakes at present.
The IUCN Red List and other sources don’t provide the number of the Mud snake total population size. Currently, this species is classified as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List and its numbers today are stable.
