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VirgiNia Valeriae and Storeria DeKayi in a northeast Kansas Grassland Community : eColoGy and Conservation impliCations

Fitch (1999) summarized his fifty years of intensive field work on the snake fauna of the Fitch Natural History Reservation (FNHR) and adjacent study areas, commenting upon the relative scarcity of two small, secretive species, the Smooth Earth Snake (Virginia valeriae) and Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi). Location of a population of V. valeriae (Pisani 2005) as a component of a diverse snake fauna that includes S. dekayi on land adjacent to Fitch's main study areas provided opportunity to accumulate considerable new information on these species in a community similar to that studied by, and thus building upon, Fitch (1999). Of Storeria dekayi, Fitch (1999: 112) noted "less than five records per year, on the average [total = 172 marked in 50 years with but three recaptures]”; Fitch's Virginia valeriae records totaled just three over the same 50-year period; the species is recognized as Threatened by Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. My 3-year study has yielded 124 S. dekayi records (32 recaptures) and 94 V. valeriae records (46 recaptures) from one site near the extreme western edge of the range of V. valeriae. Much of the ecological data involving these two species, especially V. valeriae, is found in unpublished theses or in published sources that may easily be overlooked. My secondary goal in this paper is to call attention to them by appropriately citing these sources.