Good quality pinesnake habitat appears to be characterized by xeric, pine-dominated or pine-oak (50 to 80% pine) woodland with an open, low understorey established on sandy soils. Longleaf pine sandhills appear to represent critical habitat over much of the southeastern United States. Pinesnakes also require forest openings, with level, well-drained sandy soils and little shrub cover, as nesting and hibernation sites.

This snake is terrestrial, fossorial, and arboreal. It remains underground in cold weather and during the hot midday period in summer (Fitch 1956, Zappalorti et al. 1983, Burger et al. 1988). It may occupy mammal burrows (Schroder 1950, Fitch 1958) or dig its own burrow, aided by a pointed snout and enlarged rostral scale; it is an accomplished burrower in loose soil (Franz 1992). Eggs are deposited in burrows excavated by the female in loose soil (Moore 1893; Zappalorti et al. 1983; Burger and Zappalorti 1986, 1991), spaces beneath large rocks or logs, or possibly small mammal burrows (Ernst and Barbour 1989, Franz 1992).

The species' range extends from extreme eastern Louisiana discontinuously east to eastern and southern Florida, and discontinuously north to Kentucky, Virginia, and southern New Jersey in the United States (Ernst and Ernst 2003). Records for Arkansas, Maryland, New York, and Veracruz (Mexico) probably represent introductions (Sweet and Parker 1990) and are not mapped here.

At least several occurrences of this species are in protected areas.