Heterodon platyrhinos

Jake Smith · CC BY-NC 4.0 · via GBIF. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- eastern hognosed snakePBDB
- Sits inside
- HeterodonPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Heterodon
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Heterodon
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota
Time the record covers
At least 4.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 4.7 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 9.4 Mya to 11.7 ka.
22 occurrences of Heterodon platyrhinos on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
22 occurrences- Miocene8%
- Pliocene13%
- Pleistocene79%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
6 formations
- Rexroad Formation2
- Kingsdown Formation2
- McPherson Formation2
- Long Pine Formation1
- Ash Hollow Formation1
- Crooked Creek Formation1
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The named rock units Heterodon platyrhinos has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Heterodon platyrhinos and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Heterodon platyrhinos and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
584 taxa- Thamnophis14 sites
- Equus12 sites
- Coluber constrictor11 sites
- Nerodia10 sites
- Lampropeltis getulus9 sites
- Lampropeltis triangulum9 sites
- Rana pipiens9 sites
- Eumeces8 sites
- Agkistrodon7 sites
- Ambystoma tigrinum7 sites
- Elaphe obsoleta7 sites
- Nerodia sipedon7 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus7 sites
- Spermophilus tridecemlineatus7 sites
- Bufo6 sites
- Crotalus horridus6 sites
- Dasypus bellus6 sites
- Hyla6 sites
- Megalonyx6 sites
- Microtus pennsylvanicus6 sites
- Peromyscus6 sites
- Ursus americanus6 sites
- Bufo woodhousei5 sites
- Camelops5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 22 sites for Heterodon platyrhinos, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
15 references- A succession of Pliocene and Pleistocene snake faunas from the High Plains of the United States6
- Hemphillian (late Miocene) snakes from Nebraska, with comments on Arikareean through Blancan snakes of midcontinental North America2
- Herpetofauna of the Sandahl Local fauna (Pleistocene: Illinoian) of Kansas2
- Snakes of the Berends Local Fauna (Pleistocene: early Illinoian) of Oklahoma1
- Herpetofauna of the Rancholabrean Schulze Cave local fauna of Texas1
- Guilday, 19841
- Herpetofaunas of the Big Springs and Hornet's Nest quarries (northeastern Nebraska, Pleistocene: Late Blancan)1
- The Pleistocene (Kansan) herpetofauna of Trout Cave, West Virginia1
- Herpetofauna of the Nash Local Fauna (Pleistocene: Aftonian) of Kansas1
- The Pleistocene (Kansan) herpetofauna of Cumberland Cave, Maryland1
- A Pleistocene herpetofauna from Ladds, Georgia1
- The fossil snakes of Florida1
Each of the 22 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 3 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2

Picture of Heterodon platyrhinos
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Jake Smith
- Licence
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- HETERODON PLATYRHINOS · UMMZ:Herps:183628
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itHeterodon through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Latreille 1801)