[2] The epithet lindheimeri is to honor the German-American naturalist Ferdinand Jacob Lindheimer, who collected the first specimen in New Braunfels, Texas.

The several naturally occurring color variations include albinos, high orange or hypomelanistic, and a few specimens which display leucism, which have become regularly captive-bred and are popular in the pet trade.

One of their defensive behaviors involves 'rattling' or rapidly whipping the end of their tails back and forth against anything nearby to create a rattling sound.

[citation needed] The Texas rat snake has a voracious appetite, consuming large numbers of rodents and birds, and sometimes lizards, soft-bodied insects, and frogs, which they subdue with constriction.

They are generalists, found in a wide range of habitats from swamps to forests to grasslands, even in urban areas.