Micruroides

Micruroides is a genus in the family Elapidae, the same front-fanged family that includes cobras, mambas, sea snakes, and the more diverse New World coralsnakes of the genus Micrurus. Our database holds one species, the Sonoran coralsnake (Micruroides euryxanthus). It is a true coralsnake: small, slender, smooth-scaled, and ringed in red, black, and pale yellow or white. Micruroides is distinguished from its close relative Micrurus largely by range and by fine details of head and scale anatomy, but for the casual observer the two look much alike. This genus represents the western, desert-adapted branch of North American coralsnakes.

The Sonoran coralsnake occurs in the Sonoran Desert region of the southwestern United States, mainly Arizona and into southwestern New Mexico, and south into northwestern Mexico. It favors arid and semiarid habitats: rocky desert, thornscrub, grassland, and the lower slopes of mountains, often near rock crevices, leaf litter, or loose soil where it can burrow and hide. It is secretive and largely fossorial, spending most of its time underground or under cover and emerging at night or after rain. Because of these habits it is encountered far less often than its bright warning colors might suggest. Members are recognized by a small head barely distinct from the neck, a blunt blackish snout, and complete body rings of red, black, and light yellow that encircle the body. In this genus the red and yellow rings touch, the basis for the old North American rhyme, though color rules vary worldwide and should never be trusted as a safety test.

This is a venomous elapid. The Sonoran coralsnake produces a neurotoxic venom, and while it is a small snake with a small mouth and a reserved temperament, it should never be handled. Do not pick up, restrain, or attempt to identify a wild coralsnake by handling it. If anyone is bitten, treat it as a medical emergency: keep the person calm and still, remove rings or tight clothing near the bite, do not cut, suck, or apply a tourniquet, and seek emergency care immediately. In the United States contact Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 or call local emergency services. Ecologically, Sonoran coralsnakes feed mainly on other small snakes and lizards, are egg-laying, and are most active in warm, humid conditions of the monsoon season. They are an important, low-profile part of the desert food web and are best appreciated from a respectful distance.