page_title: Aesculapian snake
section_title: Behavior
hierarchical_section_title: Aesculapian snake / Behavior
caption_attribution_description: Zamenis longissimus Français&#160;: Tête de couleuvre d'Esculape
context_page_description: The Aesculapian snake, is a species of nonvenomous snake native to Europe, a member of the Colubrinae subfamily of the family Colubridae. Growing up to 2 metres in length, it is among the largest European snakes, similar in size to the four-lined snake and the Montpellier snake. The Aesculapian snake has been of cultural and historical significance for its role in ancient Greek, Roman and Illyrian mythology and derived symbolism.
context_section_description: The snakes are active by day. In the warmer months of the year, they come out in late afternoon or early morning. They are very good climbers capable of ascending even vertical, branchless tree trunks. The snakes have been observed at heights of 4–5 m and even 15–20 m in trees, and foraging in the roofs of buildings. Observed optimum temperature for activity in German populations is 20-22 °C (Heimes 1988) and they are rarely recorded below 16 °C or above 25 °C, other observations for Ukrainian populations (Ščerbak et Ščerban 1980) put minimum activity temperature from 19 °C and optimum to 21-26 °C. Above around 27 °C they try to avoid exposure to direct sunlight and cease activity with more extreme heat. The snakes will exhibit a degree of activity even during hibernation, moving around to keep a body temperature near 5 °C and occasionally emerging to bask on sunny days.
  The average home range for French populations has been calculated at 1.14ha, however males will travel longer distances of up to 2 km to find females during the mating season and females to find suitable hatching sites to lay eggs.
  The Aesculapian snakes are deemed secretive and not always easy to find even in areas of positive presence, or found in surprising contexts. In contact with humans, they can be rather tame, possibly due to their cryptic coloration keeping them hidden within their natural environment. They usually disappear and hide, but if cornered they may sometimes stand their ground and try to intimidate their opponent, sometimes with a chewing-like movement of the mouth and occasionally biting.
  It has been speculated that the species may be actually more prevalent than thought due to spending a significant part of its time in tree canopy, however no reliable data exist as to what part that would be. In France it is said to be the only snake species that occurs inside dense, shadowy forests with minimum undergrowth, presumably because of using foliage for basking and foraging. In other parts of the range it has been reported to only use the canopy on a more substantial basis in largely uninhabited areas, such as the natural beech forests of the East Slovak and Ukrainian Carpathians, with similar characteristics.
caption: Lightly colored adult.
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