ok phil i can see your a splitter and thats cool, but im a lumper and having kept&bred both suppossed ssp.for several years from several localities it is my opinion they are they same snake. and ftr some nigra DO develop speckles into the bar/chain pattern and some holbrooki loose it,i beleive it has to do with range are you really gonna base ssp.status on that??phenotypes? your title says it,,,1 key differance,,,but thats just it there is NO key differance at all in nigra&holbrooki, i remember i was sad when yumensis was DE-classified as califoriae but after working with them i came to that very same conclusion they are the same just patterned differantly as ALL getula are,like FR says the snakes dont know what we people have named/classified them as and neither do they care its only important to us for some inexplicable reason????????,,,,,,thomas davis

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