Loranca's Earth Snake

The top and sides of the head and the anterior portion of the body are black. The remainder of the body, past roughly the twelfth middorsal scale, is reddish-orange with black transverse marks. There are 13–20 black transverse marks on the body, most of which are saddle-shaped. A minority of the marks are Y-shaped. There are reddish-orange rings between adjacent saddles. The tail also has 4–10 black transverse marks. The underside of the head is pale grey and that of the body and tail is almost spotless reddish-orange. The tail surface is increasingly dark posteriorly.

Geophis lorancai is only known from the Sierra de Zongolica of west-central Veracruz and the Sierra de Quimixtlán in adjacent extreme east-central Puebla. These mountains have irregular terrain with numerous hills, ascents and descents, and streams. The predominant vegetation is cloud forest and pine-oak associations. The present snake has only been recorded from leaf litter and under fallen logs in cloud forests at elevations of 1,210–1,700 m (3,970–5,580 ft).

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