Many species of snakes display arboreal behavior and are often found in vegetation many meters above ground. Mojave Desert snake species rarely get very far above the ground surface and are perhaps limited by predominantly low growing vegetation. Coluber flagellum piceus is considered strictly diurnal and although may ascend vegetation while active, is thought to retreat to subterranean refugia at night. Werler and Dixon (2000. Texas Snakes: Identification, Distribution, and Natural History. University of Texas Press, Austin. 437 pp.) stated “The western coachwhip is active above ground only during daylight hours. It almost invariably retires to depths of an animal burrow before sundown, where it spends the night.” The normal morning activity period for C. flagellum appears to be from approximately 0700–1000 h from June through September (Jones and Whitford 1989. Southwest. Nat. 34:460–467). Secor and Nagy (1994. Ecology 75:1600–1614), and Secor (1995. Herpetol. Monogr. 9:169–186) determined that the average body temperature for active above ground activity of C. flagellum was (33.1°C + 0.1°C, range of 24.0°C–40.8°C, N = 502), stating that coachwhip snakes were seldom active on the surface with body temperatures below 28°C. Here, I report a C. f. piceus that apparently spent the night draped in a Creosote Bush (Larrea tridentata).
