..your animal has very little in common with the photo you found on the internet. As a rule, a pure mugitus has little discernable pattern for the first 1/4 to 1/3 of the body; your animal is well patterned from the neck to the tip of the tail. In addition, your animal is lacking the bulk seen in Pine Snakes; that,the numerous saddles and the elongate head are suggestive of an animal from further west, though there may be some Pine Snake genes in there. The second photo you posted (from the Kingsnake classifieds), is a Pine Snake, and again shows little in common with your animal. Being new to this you need to work very hard and see many specimens to learn about these animals; to some folks they all appear similar until one's eye becomes "trained". The chances that the seller doesn't know much about this animal are high, and not at all surprising; it seems that there are a lot of "experts" on Pituophis nowadays, but not a lot of folks who know anything about them.



Bart

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