Actually, the Eastern Milksnake, and Scarlet Kingsnake are BOTH milksnakes belonging to the same genus Lampropeltis. However they are both very different from one another in size, pattern, and build, especially the head region with the Scarlet King(elapsoides) having a very narrow pointed snout for burrowing and foraging in leaf litter compared to the Eastern Milk(triangulum). There are also some meristical scale count differences as well.

The snake you are referring to is commonly known as a Coastal Plains Milksnake, it is NOT a hybrid animal, but rather it is thought to be a natural "intergrade" of the two subspecies in several small isolated pockets where their ranges overlap. Temporalis is formerly known to science as "L.t.temporalis" as Charlie has already mentioned below.

Temporalis was once thought to be a separate subspecies in the scientific community, but has been removed from this subspecific classification for quite some time, however these snakes seem to be more than just simple intergrades, as elapsoides is NOT generally known to exchange geneflow with any other subspecies of milksnake. These snakes(temporalis) seem to have become their own entity, and are a very distinct, furthermore these small snakes seem to breed true to their own race even where there are large numbers of Easterns and Scarlets within the same area.

Oddly enough, I don't know of anyone, nor have ever read of anyone successfully crossing an Eastern x Scarlet to produce the alleged intergrade known as temporalis. This seems like it should be easy enough,...especially with all the ridiculous crossing and hybridizing of animals in the hobby today. These snakes do indeed seem to reserve breeding only amongst their own kind for whatever reason. Maybe a long time ago, probably many thousands of years they were derived from two separate subspecies intergrading, but they seem to be their own little anomoly altogether. Another thing that is very odd, is the fact that temporalis is only known from several small isolated locales within the eastern U.S., and not scattered evenly throughout where the two snakes meet naturally.

Whatever science once thought of temporalis' origin, todays hobbyists are still very interested in breeding these pretty little snakes, and keeping their locality specific bloodlines as pure as possible. Temporalis is indeed a uniquely distict animal, and is a very revered animal to many in the hobby.

Below is a Calvert County, Maryland temporalis I used to have a pair of years ago.


best regards, ~Doug



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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

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