Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Good morning ratsnake fans. Hope some of you like the guttatus group.

Well, I was down in South Texas about a week, or so, ago, enjoying the IHS, in San Antonio. Later, I decided to spend a little time with a friend from Corpus Christi and got a chance to look at his ratsnakes. He mostly has what he calls the Southern Great Plains ratsnake, Pantherophis guttatus meahllmorum.

Of course, the controversy over the names, both scientific and common, is still ongoing. While some like to think of the Great Plains ratsnake as a separate species from the corn, I like to think of all the subspecies as being part of one species, and relate to them according to the habitats they are in. As such, I see meahllmorum as the thornscrub habitat specialist, and that's where the name, thornscrub ratsnake, came from.

Anyway, here's a couple pix of Toby's meahllmorum from the Corpus Christi area. His big male, which weighs around 950 grams...

This is his large female...

Thornscrub ratsnakes from south of Corpus Christi generally don't have much in the way of dark markings on the ventral surface. Here's a photo of a male showing the ventrum...

These snakes are all examples from Nueces Co, TX.

While I was there we got a chance to do a little road hunting also. We went about 30 or 40 minutes north to Refugio Co. The first night we saw a DOR TX rat, P. obsoletus, and a DOR thornscrub rat, P. guttatus. The TX rat was interesting, and Toby keeps a couple of those too, but I'll spare you the photo of that DOR. I want to show the thornscrub rat, however, because of the color/pattern differences here. The dorsal pattern is pretty typical of meahllmorum...

Here's the ventral patterning, which is approaching the patterning of P. g. emoryi and P. g. slowinskii...

The habitat where this snake was found has me a little stumped. It wasn't the usual thornscrub habitat and it wasn't the forest type slowinskii seems to like. It probably was more like grassland, which would be emoryi habitat. The problem there is that emoryi's range doesn't come all the way down to the coast.

In keeping with the habitat idea, I wanted to see some of the habitat that my particular group of meahllmorum came from. So, we ventured down to Brazos Island, way down in Cameron Co, one day. Here's a habitat pic of the dunes...

I loved it there, except it's too hot in June, unless your road cruising. I love the sandy habitat, but all we saw were a few lizards and a whipsnake.

My other meahllmorum is from the Freer area, west of Corpus Christi. On the way back to San Antonio, I stopped in places around Freer to snap some pix. Here's one that shows the deserty like habitat...

You can image the thornscrub ratsnakes are a little different in this area. The changing habitat has an influence on what they look like and their behaviors.

My Freer ratsnake...

One of my Brazos Island ratsnakes...

These snakes were born from w/c adults. Snakes from the harsher, more deserty type habitats, tend to be lighter colored, and have less dark pigment on the ventrum, etc. Also, the patterning starts to break up.

Well, that's about it for my meahllmorum presentation. I can see why some folks want to have emoryi as a separate species. It would be convenient to be able to classify the thornscrub rats as, P. emoryi meahllmorum. But, the problem I have is that I think there's intergradation going on along the coast of East Texas. If so, then I think we have to stick with the one species concept. My next project is to check out more snakes from the intergrade zone.

Later....Terry
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Ratsnake Haven...researching ratsnakes since 1988

Ratsnake Haven Group...an information providing list site.

Some of the suttle differences such as the ventral pattern or lack of in the different sub species is interesting. Nice group of rats. Randy

Thanks, Randy. You've got some nice animals yourself. Good luck hatching all your eggs.

TC

Terry,
Have you noticed a difference in temperment of those animals, compared to emoryi?
It seems the few I've examined down west of McAllen were "mean as a snake" and seemed to have big teeth, at least from the bite!!!
I also have to agree that they seem like they should be under guttata
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Regards, Bill McGighan

Thanks, Bill. I haven't actually seen any alive in the wild, yet. But others I've talked to said they were pretty fiesty. And, as big as they are, I'd think they can produce a pretty good bite. The ones I have from w/c are fairly tame.

Later...TC

Great post! Thanks very much!
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0.1 Snow Corn "Hope"
1. Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Chunk" (Goonies)
.1 Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Peaches"
0.0.1 MO Locale Black Ratsnake "Molly" (Flogging Molly)

As we say in Missouri, "I ain't goin back to Missouri!"

>>Thanks for the great information and photos.
looking forward to your observations of the intergrade zone.
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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"resistance is futile"
Jimmy (draybar)

Draybars Snakes

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Terry, great post and good argument for the one species theory!
It's too bad that we didn't get any live meahllmorums when you were down, but that dor from Refugio was very interesting anyway. The ventral pattern is really different from any of mine, even the most heavily patterned.

I'd love to see offspring from that reverse-striped Freer animal! Any plans for breeding it yet?

Here's the photo you took of my nw Nueces female.

-Toby

Hi, Toby. Thanks for the comments. I thought the ventral patterning on the Refugio female was interesting too. Here's a pic of your big, Nueces female showing some ventral patterning...

Since the Refugio female is about 1/2 way bt. Corpus Christi and Port Lavaca to the north, I'm thinking the patterning is gradual, or clinal. It's very interesting that a "slowinskii" was found in the Port Lavaca area (Calhoun Co, I believe).

Dixon, in his new Texas field guide, has meahllmorum as a Great Plains rat, Elaphe emoryi, and slowinskii as a corn snake, Elaphe guttata. I think that's very interesting, as I'm sure that meahllmorum and slowinskii are intergrading near Port Lavaca. I'd really like to see some of those ratsnakes from Calhoun Co, also.

Toby, I think there's actually two areas of gene intergradation in your part of Texas. I think there's an influence from the west and south from the meahllmorum, like the Freer and Brazos Island ratsnakes, and an influence from the northeast from the slowinskii, like the one from Port Lavaca area. The whole area from Corpus Christi to Port Lavaca is probably getting bombarded with genes from all the different directions giving your snakes that really mixed bag of looks.

The fact that Burbrink made slowinskii a separate species, as well as, emoryi, is interesting because, afterall, how different could the genes be if they are being mixed?? Burbrink also mentioned a meahllmorum from near Brownsville that keyed out closer to E. slowinskii than to E. emoryi, when he did the dna studies. The fact that very few specimens have been tested from your area adds to the confusion.

I know you know most of this stuff, but wanted to make it clear for all who are listening.

That Freer female of mine is still a little small, but I may be breeding her next season. For some reason she's growing slowly. I'd like to cross her with a Brazos Island male, also a meahllmorum, to get some nice pure meahllmorum. The Freer female has a most excellent disposition. She is so mild tempered, she's almost limp when you hold her. Beautiful snake and pet. Can't wait to see some babies. Also, I may try to get some more meahllmorum to add to my project. Let me know if you breed any of your Nueces Co. specimens.

Thanks for the input....Terry

Terry, I agree there needs to be some dna testing on these Nueces animals. I am planning on breeding the big se Corpus Christi adults next year, definately, and maybe some others. I will let you know next Spring for sure.

Btw, I weighed a few of my adults tonight, and the big male is at 1048 grams! He has gained close to 100 grams since I took him out of brumation back in February. This weigh-in is several days after a meal and defecation. He has not been overfed either, gets 2 medium mice or 1 jumbo mouse once every two to three weeks. -Toby

Toby, he is a monster. Do you know about how long he is? I'm beginning to get some imput from other herpers, and it looks like meahllmorum is pretty big throughout it's range. Also, it looks like meahllmorum could be more closely related to slowinskii than I thought to begin with.

Gotta run. Talk more later....Terry

Terry, I estimate him at around five feet, give or take a couple inches. I haven't been able to measure him, he doesn't exactly cooperate with me on anything! haha! I downloaded a program that is supposed to help measure snakes, but have not tried to use it yet. -Toby

Terry, I just measured my adult wc meahllmorum using the Serp Widgets Snake Measurer. The big male (se Corpus Christi) is 59.94 inches, the old male from nw nueces is 58.63 inches, big female (se Corpus)is 54.6", younger nw Nueces female is 45" (approx., couldn't get the end of the tail for exact mt). -Toby

Here's the young adult (3 yr old) female from nw Nueces County.

>>Terry, I just measured my adult wc meahllmorum using the Serp Widgets Snake Measurer. The big male (se Corpus Christi) is 59.94 inches, the old male from nw nueces is 58.63 inches, big female (se Corpus)is 54.6", younger nw Nueces female is 45" (approx., couldn't get the end of the tail for exact mt). -Toby
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>>Here's the young adult (3 yr old) female from nw Nueces County.
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Toby, thanks for the measurements. I've been seeing a few Western fox snakes lately and the one I had in captivity for a couple weeks, shed, and the shed skin measured about 61 inches. Sloughs are always longer than the actual snake, and at this size the actual length was probably around 50-55 inches. I think they're comparable snakes for size. I'll have to start getting some weights too.

I sure like that photo of the 3 yr. old female. My Brazos Island female is three this summer too. She doesn't look that good though, much darker.

Keep in touch on anything you find.

Terry

Hey Terry, I like those fox snakes, too... Look forward to any posts or pics you do on those.

The three year old female seems to be getting lighter as she grows, especially the head and neck area. I like the darker colored ones also. One of my 2004 (female) captive breds has very dark brown blotches and looks a lot like some photos of slowinskii that I have seen. I'll try to get a photo of her soon... I don't remember if you took one of her or not.

This is one of the 2005 babies. -Toby

Toby, that's a nice one. I think the dark ones look almost exactly like slowinskii. How many of those '05's do you have? I remember you said you had three offspring from your w/c, which I figured were all 04's.

Here's one of yours I think is an '04, but I'm not sure. Can you figure this one out? Nice light colors.

PS: I did find one fox snake in the U. P., but it was DOR. Will post on that later.

Terry

Hey Terry, that little one is the wild caught '05 that I found, down the street from where I live, the day after Christmas. I don't have any cb '05's left, all sold or traded off and I only kept a 1.1 of my '04's, both big heavy snakes, for their age.

Btw, a meahllmorum made onto the morning news on one our local stations here, today. It was inside a trendy, upscale womens' clothing store in a very busy and heavily populated part of town. I don't know what they did with it after catching it, but it did not look good for the snake. Whoever was handling it was doing so pretty roughly, and obviously without regard for the snake's health. The news station was calling it something like "smooth brown snake". -Toby

Toby, that '05 meahllmorum sure is a pretty snake with those light colorings. It looks like it's a female too, from this pic...

Thanks for all the info. I'm still working on your photos. Pretty busy with other projects too, including getting ready to go to AZ next week. That '05 might make a nice breeder in a couple years. If you ever think of getting rid of her, let me know. I'm leaning towards breeding for the light coloration.

The story about the meahllmorum in Corpus Christi is interesting. Seems like folks should know about guttatus-type snakes, at least, but city folks probably don't get see many snakes, or want to for that matter.

Thanks...

TC

Terry, for some reason, I have not gotten around to probing that little snake, yet! I was going to do it tonight, but discovered it is in the blue, and don't want to disturb it. I may breed it in a few years, myself, but if I do decide to get rid of it, I will let you know. I may breed my 3 year old female and old male next year, so I may have some nice light colored babies next year to choose from, anyway.

As for city people here knowing anything about snakes, even the country people don't! Most people here call any non-venemous snake a grass snake. I am not at all surprised (anymore) when I hear completely erroneous information, concerning snakes, spouted by the media in this town, although it does frustrate me. I could rant a while on this, but I'll spare you! haha! -Toby

Hey, Toby. I just didn't want you to put it back in the wild w/o getting a chance at it, is all, LOL. I'm glad you'll be breeding her to the old male next season. Good to give him a shot at her before he's too old to shoot straight. Keep me in mind for one of the offspring.

I hear ya' on the snake ignorant people. Just not a lot of education about reptiles and amphibians going on in school. But I do have to say, it seems there's more than when I was in school.

I used to bring animals into the classroom all the time when I was teaching 4th and 5th graders. ASAMOF, I'm thinking of doing some of that "independent" type of work once I retire to AZ.

The DNR in MI has made it illegal to move or collect massasaugas in the state. Now, if we could only get them to make it illegal to kill them.....Ughhhhhh!!

Here's a pic of your "little" adult female, meahllmorum. Is this the three yr. old....?

TC

Terry, Yep, that's the girl! I'd know that head pattern anywhere. I almost can't beleive how much she has grown since I got her. She was a smallish yearling and now almost 4 ft long and over 460 grams!

I plan to breed all of the snakes I keep... sometime! haha! I have to be careful that I don't get carried away and overload myself with babies! Yeah, I think I will let the old guy breed at least one more time. He seems to have become really active just this last year... Maybe he missed his breeding! -Toby