Virginia valeriae elegans
Western Smooth Earthsnake

Small. Fossorial. Plain brown with very faint middorsal stripe. Belly uniform light yellow. Dorsal scales weekly keeled. Six supralabial scales, two postocular scales, and two internasal scales. Species account on iNaturalist

Arkansas Herpetological Atlas 2019

This species is represented by 188 records from 24 sources: 151 museum (), 0 literature (), 0 research (), and 25 observation (), with 12 additional Trauth et al. (2004) locality points remaining unsourced (). It has been museum vouchered for 39 of 75 counties (), with 5 additional counties having other forms of reported occurrence (). Years of collection range from 1903 to present.

This species occurs throughout much of the Interior Highlands and South Central Plains, with many of the large distributional gaps likely an artifact of undersampling. A questionable record from northern Mississippi County (MPM 5960 from 1970) warrants reexamination to confirm the species identification.