My daughter took a short video of a snake she came across in northern Nevada and we’re hoping someone could ID it for us. Unfortunately she didn’t get a good shot of the head. So far, the best guess has been a Gopher Snake, but we were hoping for a more positive ID.
TIA!
If you freeze it on the first frame, you do get a really brief view of the head. Based on that I’m going to go with Great Basin Gopher Snake.
I agree with Tamerlane.
Thanks for the quick reply! She was really curious because she was running at a place called Rattlesnake Mountain and I guess wanted to see how close she came to one. Most people kinda, sorta thought it was probably a Gopher Snake, but weren’t really sure.
I told her next time to pick it up and look for a rattle, then open its mouth and look for fangs. If either are present, then she should probably not disturb it…
I grew up in Sacramento and gopher snakes were abundant–I had one crossing a bike trail that slithered in between my spokes and paused so I bent down to pick him up and get him out of danger of being run over. The goofy little thing coiled up and shook its tail at me and I reassessed the head and distinct lack of rattles on the tail (yes, I know they can sometimes lose the rattles but there’s usually at least a button there rather than coming to a smooth point) and the overall slenderness of the critter, which had none of the stocky middle of a rattlesnake. I figured it’s an evolutionary advantage to gopher snakes to mimic the behavior of the venomous snakes who bear a strong pattern resemblance to them. I applauded the ingenuity of the snek and tickled his tail to get him to move off.
Either gopher snake or bull snake. The bull snakes I’ve seen tend to be a bit thicker. It is hard to get a sense of proportion from the video, though.
Gopher snake and bull snake are both common names for the same species, Pituophis catenifer. The subspecies most often called bull snake is P. c. sayi, which is found from Canada down to Texas, further east from P. c. deserticola, whose common name is Great Basin gopher snake.
Trust the rattlesnake. He knows snakes.
Mystery snake,
Are you ready for your mystery snake?
Thankfully venomous snake ID is easy - there is only one species native to Northern Nevada, the Great Basin rattlesnake, Crotalus oreganus lutosus. Southern Nevada has like 4 more species.
Concur, it looks like a gopher snake.
Open the door…for your…mystery snake. 
I was going to try a Fake ID/Snake ID pun, but just couldn’t come up with anything.