The specimens I have are not from the B.N.F. They are from Madison County below Huntsville. I have no doubts that the Bankhead population is pure syspila. On that note, YES I would be highly interested in seeing those pics. And do you still have those animals? Not that I want them, but just curious.

I do beleive there are pure forms of syspila in other parts of AL, including the ones I have. As with any species one should expect a HIGH degree of variability, especially with a species as plastic as these. To the best of my knowledge these populations in particular are Mt. ranging snakes that retreat to high bluffs and rock ledges. They are seperated by valleys and seem to be isolated by these barriers. The reds on this mountain over here never interbreed with the reds over there. That kinda thing. So when there is no exchange of new gene flow certain phenotypes begin to appear and become the dominant form. Eastern milks have long since lost influence with some populations in Madison County, which leaves me to beleive these are in fact a very unique group of syspila, that "could" have had distant triangulum influence, but they no longer occur in some of these populations. With that said, I do beleive these are syspila, despite the v-shaped head pattern. If all other characteristics are evaluated then syspila is the only subspecies you can conclude. I have seen many syspila from Madison with the typical band behind the head, not connected by the v-shaped pattern, including the parents of the ones I have, and some of their siblings. I chose the snakes I have in particular because of their unique head patterns resembling those of triangulum to see if their offspring are as diverse as they are, or if they possess the v-shape or the typical syspila head pattern. Is all of this too confusing?

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