Western Blackhead Snake

Open encyclopedia reference

The western black-headed snake (Tantilla planiceps), also known as the California black-headed snake, is a snake species endemic to the Californias (the U.S. State of California and the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico), as north as the San Francisco Bay and as far east as western Utah, and Texas. It lives in mostly moist pockets in mostly arid or semiarid environments and spends much of its life underground. It has a flattened head as most crevice-dwellers and is seven to fifteen inches in size. It is brown, slender, olive-gray, with a black head bordered by a white collar. Its habitat is often in woodland, desert areas, grassland and along arroyos in areas that are wet in a usually dry region. The western black-headed snake is a member of a larger natural group of small New World terrestrial colubrids, where some of the related species include sand snake (Chilomeniscus), shovel-nosed snake (Chionactis), and the ground snake (Sonora). The western black-headed snake is the sister species of Tantilla yaquia of southern Arizona.

Wikipedia contributors, Western black-headed snake; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T10:38:07.268510+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Tantilla planiceps (Blainville, 1835)

Name authority

(Blainville, 1835)

Common name

Western Blackhead Snake

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Reptilia

Order

Squamata

Family

Colubridae

Genus

Tantilla

Extinction status

Not supplied by this source

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classReptilia Laurenti, 1768
9. orderSquamata Oppel, 1811
10. suborderSerpentes Linnaeus, 1758
11. infraorderAlethinophidia Nopcsa, 1923
12. familyColubridae
13. subfamilyColubrinae
14. genusTantilla
15. speciesTantilla planiceps (Blainville, 1835)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Tantilla. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 1,632 records assigned to Colubridae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Tantilla&species=planiceps Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:54PJJ. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.