This is a fairly common and widespread species, but what a beautiful common and widespread species! They are sometimes solid color, but all the ones I saw were banded. This was the first of the "one snake under a rock per day" series of snakes I came across in my month's stay in Sedona. In addition to three more Groundsnakes under rocks (but only one per day!), the others in the series were a Smith's Black-headed Snake, a Desert Striped Whipsnake, two Desert Patch-nosed Snakes, and two Night Snakes.

In my month's stay in Sedona, I ended up finding five of these little beauties, ranging in size from a tiny baby about three inches long to a large adult of about a foot and a half. I encountered one of them slithering across a hiking trail; the other four were under rocks.