"What influence would you say accounts for the white rings darkening as well... at least to me it seems there is an overall darkening of the entire snake"

Hi Gerry,....

Well, polyzona have more of a ontogenetic predisposition for darkening up more than stuarti, but that snake is still very young, so the extent of the darkening isn't known just yet. But I can easily say that from the size of it that it has a substantial amount more darkening to undergo as it ages. Polyzona also typically display the most tipping in their white AND red rings out of all the Latin forms too. Also, I don't know if the snake is in shed-mode either. Both stuarti AND polyzona can often show a muted down, duller over-all coloration to their red rings too. Stuarti key-out with anywhere from 19 to 28 RBR from neck to vent, while polyzona key at 16 to 22 red body rings to vent. Polyzona can generally have a tad wider white rings, than most stuarti, but this is just generally speaking. Both can be variable and different lines and locales will vary some from one another. Both can have substantial tipping, but older polyzona casn be very dull and the light rings so obliterated with dark pigment that they are absolutely red and black bicolored animals.

The snout bands of stuarti typically display an abruptly apexed thin "V" shape, and it can be complete or incomplete and broken in either subspecies. I can't make out the snout band well at all in that pic, but it looks like it might be straighter across, which would tend to lean more towards polyzona, but that isn't etched in stone either. I have also seen a locality stuarti originating from Costa Rica in some literature that had more of a hondurensis looking thicker snout band, but the forward edge still was slightly apexed in the center.

So without seeing the red ring-count on that one along with the snout, it's real tough. The tight spacing on the triads that I CAN see though lead me to belive it has a fairly high number. But as to just how many, who knows.

If it is a two or three-way intergrade of a few Latin milks it would be impossible to say too...


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

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

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