Very cool snake!,.......





I can't see the tongue, but the irises don't look real orange either, but that could also be from the mutant gene influence.



Now if the tongue is red, it is an Everglades Ratsnake(rossalleni). If the tongue is black, it is a Yellow Ratsnake(quadrivittata).



It certainly has the muted color and sides of the exact same ones I was refering to earlier too.



Also, after thinking about this a bit, since Everglades have a fair composition of red combined with the yellow to make the orange pigment, and seeing as how the belly of yours is also more of a whitish color instead of orange as it would be in an Everglades, it could very well be a form of anerythrism involved there, or even a combination of anery and hypoxanthism(lack of yellow pigment). The word "xanthos" is greek for yellow, thus the term "axanthic" is used for animals that display reduced amounts of yellow, and "xanthic" animals have an over-abundance of yellow pigment.



That is very interesting!. So see what color it's tongue actually is, and this will tell you exactly which subspecies it is.



thanks for posting the photo's!





~Doug
-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

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