Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Pennsylvania just passed a law that states that we can only have 1 E. alleghaniensis - Eastern Rat Snake (without a special permit - which I will gladly get if I know I need it.

I have 3 E. alleghaniensis (formerly E. obsoleta obsoleta) x Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata- intergrade (Often called the Greenish Ratsnake)

I looked on CNAH and it no longer lists Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata as a seperate species which seems odd.

See:{url]http://www.cnah.org/nameslist.asp?id=6[/url]

The game Fish and Boat Commission who are incharge of this are very slow in answering questions...any one have any idea what to do?

If you got confirmation that PA F&G are using CNAH (as opposed to SSAR) classification to define species, then, if you have Yellow Rats, Deckerts Rats, GulfHammock Rats Greenish Rats, Everglades Rats, and maybe some Gray Rats (East of the Apalachicola River) you have "E. alleghaniensis".
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Regards, Bill McGighan

Actually I have no idea which they are going by-yet. Do you have a link to the species names on SSAR?

I mean 99% of the books and even the newest one for PA Herps still list the old name for the Black Ratsnake and it's the info that author gave them to make this law..I'm beginning if they ever thought of this when they wrote it. None of them use
Pantherophis alleghaniensis-not even the Fish and Boat Commission.

I personally think that they should not include all those not native to PA-because they say - a Live Native Species Permit and the Yellow Rat is NOT native and obviously NOT a Black Rat--sigh.....

:
Link to Crother et al list of official SSAR names

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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Thank-you so much ^__^

I would get the permit to stay out of any trouble. There have been people in Ohio that got in trouble for keeping leucistic texas rats that the state said were "albino" black rats.

The laws here are written to subspecies and only list the black rat. However if they decide that your ratsnake is a black rat, your going to get a nice fine.

Hmm. I think it would be hard to mistake those and my Yellow Ratsnake for anything else-definately not something native to PA. I see what you're saying about albinos and Leusistics (sp) they would be hard to prove wouldn't they. Yikes!

Gads they are gonna kill me with more permits-because of the all in one species thing. I have to permit my Eastern Hognose, and my Spotted Turtle as it is.

Luckily I have enough time to figure this all out.