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caught 2 @ about 3200ft in the high desert south of Barstow. These do not look like the one I caught in the Lucerne Valley area. Can someone tell by the pics if they are Speckled, C.m.pyrrhus or Panamint, C.m.stephensi?


& here is a Mojave...not so green caught this weekend too

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norcalsnakemaster@comcast.net

From my experience catching C. mitchelli in and around southern Nevada and southern Cal. IMO those look to be speckleds or C mitchelli pyrrhus. They have the typical red coloration. C. stephansi are more grey and don't have such a pronounced "coon" tail.

color doesn't really matter as stephansi can be orange or reddish at certain locales and likewise pyrrhus can be gray. But your are correct about the pattern type and distinct coontail along with head shape as distingushing characteristics.

BTW, there had been quite a bit coming through the grapevine about stephansi being elevated to full species status in teh future (they are definately a different looking snake compared to the other mitchelli forms), anybody heard anything more on teh subject?

If you caught them south of Barstow, they are pyrrhus. Rich, where did you get the info about stephensi being raised to species? I'd like to find that info also.

because I can't remember for sure. Seems BPO told me of a phone conversation with the guy doing the research, I'll pick his brain and see if he is still retaining hiis memory,lol. I also saw a presentation complete with comparitive diagrams of head scalation and such but can't remember exactly where. Biology of the Rattlesnakes symposium? I'll figure it out and let ya know,lol.

Best,

Rich

You may also want to check those supraoculars. Stephensi has little creases in theirs while pyrrhus has smooth ones.

I looked at your pics again and I was wondering if the "lighter" speck on the bottom in the first pic has something wrong with its head. For some reason it does not look right to me. Was it injured or something? Or maybe I'm just seeing things?!?!

I do not think it has an injury...but it has some dark flaking on it. I gotta tell you when we found it a local pulled up behind us when we came up on it on the road & told us that he cuts the heads off of them when he runs across them. He said they scare him & that is the reasoning behind it. I tried to explain why he shouldn't do that...but I think it fell on deaf ears. I wish California could put some regulation preventing that from happening. So that is why I took them home if anyone wants to know. If I would of left them there, they might become headless & everyone says not to relocate them. I was hoping to find juveniles...but I guess that plan was changed.
I will give them a good home
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norcalsnakemaster@comcast.net

but they were further north around Trona and the Panamint Valley area, the supra ocular has pitting in stephensi as I recall.
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Cheers
Lateralis
"I would rather be precisely wrong than approximately right"
Marion "Doc" Ford

mitchelli would be the species name, the question was whether the snake is pyrrhus or stephensi (ssp).

yep, Im a wee bit tired when I cruise these forums sometimes.
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Cheers
Lateralis
"I would rather be precisely wrong than approximately right"
Marion "Doc" Ford

got a Panamint Sunday...when you have them side to side it is easy to tell the difference...among the other differences mentioned, this Panamint has gray eyes & the speckled has orange eyes.


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norcalsnakemaster@comcast.net

You know, with the variability of pyrrhus, I tend to think that eye color mainly follows the ground color of the snake. My stephensi have red/orange iris' to match their ground color while my pyrrhus have light gray iris' to match their blue/grey ground color. Keeping it cryptic keeps them unnoticed.