Here's a comparison of your ratsnake and one of my meahllmorum, side by side...





Yours is darker, but that is understandable because mine are from Brazos Island, further south than any others is the U.S. They are often lighter colored and have a little different blotch shape.



Here's what I think. Yours has large blotches, as pointed out by Toby, and also the blotches are partially split, which is very common for meahllmorum and intergrades along the Gulf Coast of Texas. Also, these meahllmorum can reach a very large size as can the Texas corns north of them, Pantherophis (Elaphe) guttatus slowinskii. Slowinskii would be the only thing I might confuse it with.



To answer Horridus, emoryi is a somewhat smaller snake and it's blotches are narrower on ave. and they have a much larger number of dorsal blotches. I bet if the poster counted dorsal blotches she would come up with 35 to 40. Emoryi often has 50 to 60. Emoryi also has a somewhat different coloration. The coloration of this snake is quite typical of the coastal form, probably from somewhere bt. Galveston and Corpus Christi. Toby should know, he's seen dozens of these.



PS: Not to put anyone down or anything, but I think the folks on cornsnake forum don't see very many meahllmorum. They may not recognize it as even a possibility.



As far as getting to eastern VA, I think it's very possible. There's lots of these snakes around and they are not much in demand, so the value is low. They could get passed around a lot w/o folks paying very much attention to details like locality. I've seen it happen many times (folks not knowing where they came from).



Another possibility is that it could be a cross bt. a corn and a meahllmorum. This snake is a cross bt. a Brazos Island ratsnake and a hypo corn...



Notice the split blotches, but the blotches aren't as large, so who knows...



TC











>>This snake is also over 4 ft long, closer to 50 inches, I didn't think Great Plains or Westerns got his long ( 36 inches mostly ) I do agree with the head shape and eyes looking like Emori. Funny thing is that people here say mostly Emori and people on cornsnake forum say "corn" ( Kathy Love, Tim Spunkler). So I guess it's still up in the air. The only other thing is that living in eastern Virginia it would seem a little strange for an Emori or Southwestern rat snake to make its way to a pet shop here when I have to really search for one for sale on the internet.

>>-----

>>1.0 het albino ball

>>1.0 norm ball

>>0.2 norm ball

>>0.1 snow corn

>>1.0 butter corn

>>1.0 norm corn

>>1.0 striped Cali king

>>1.0 western hog

>>

>>Visual Morphs?....I love the normal looks. You can't improve on nature, you can only produce "interesting deviations".

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