The Japanese Rat Snake is a medium sized snake

Snake

Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...

 found throughout the Japanese archipelago (except the far South West). In Japanese it is known as the Aodaishō or "Green General". It is a non-venomous snake, and a member of the Colubrid

Colubrid

A colubrid is a member of the snake family Colubridae. This broad classification of snakes includes about two-thirds of all snake species on earth. The earliest species of the snake family date back to the Oligocene epoch. With 304 genera and 1,938 species, Colubridae is the largest snake family...

 family. It is hunted by Eagle

Eagle

Eagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...

s and Raccoon Dog

Raccoon Dog

The raccoon dog , also known as the magnut or tanuki, is a canid indigenous to east Asia. It is the only extant species in the genus Nyctereutes...

s.

The snakes hibernate for three to four months, mate in spring and lay 7-20 eggs in early summer.

Description

Adults reach a length of between one and two meters and a girth of about five centimeters, and is the largest Japanese snake outside of Okinawa. The color is rather variable, from pale yellow-green to a dark blue-green color.

The young snakes have a pattern of brown stripes, which may be an example of mimesis

Mimesis

Mimesis , from μιμεῖσθαι , "to imitate," from μῖμος , "imitator, actor") is a critical and philosophical term that carries a wide range of meanings, which include imitation, representation, mimicry, imitatio, receptivity, nonsensuous similarity, the act of resembling, the act of expression, and the...

 to the venomous mamushi. An albino form is known, especially around Iwakuni, where they are known and revered as "Iwakuni White Snakes". The albino population was protected in 1924 as a "National Monument".

Diet

Japanese rat snakes eat a variety of small animals: rodents, frogs or lizards. They are strong climbers and often raid birds nests. They were favoured by farmers as effective rat control, though unpopular with chicken rearers.

Hybrids

In the German reptile zoo Exotarium Oberhof Elaphe climacophora has been found able to mate with Elaphe schrenckii and to produce fertile hybrids, that in mating with each other result in snakes that look very much like Elaphe taeniura.