Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How to tell the difference?
I just found a gorgeous snake.He looks just like a corn to me but has chocolate brown spots.This is the first Ive found that wasnt a ringneck or some kind of garter so Im excited.
I would almost swear its a cornsnake but i dont know if corns even come in this color.
I cant get a pic till Wed. night, I dont have a camera here that works right.
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Where are you located? What state and county?
Mike C

If you caught the snake in the middle of the U.S.area, then odds are good that it's a Great Plains Ratsnake, but it could also be several other species as well since there isn't a photo to ID it with.
Cornsnakes are found from extreme southern New Jersey,all the way down to the FL. Keys.

Do a "google image search" on both species, and you should be able to easily identify it yourself. Don't forget, all snakes can be variable looking depending on were they were caught!

The snake photo below in the tree is a nicely colored wild-caught cornsnake from central Florida in Brevard County....the other is an EXCEPTIONAL "Miami phase" wild-caught specimen from Broward County,Florida just north of Miami. There are also some populations of anerythristic cornsnakes(lacking all red pigment) known in the southwest area of Florida.

Hope this helped some!

~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

But is the best I can do.He is about to shed and the camera washed out the pic.Im pretty convinced its a GreatPlains ratsnake now.Is this the same as the Emoryi?

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That's plenty good enough to say that is indeed a Great plains Ratsnake!.......good find!

best regards, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

that ,...yes, it's an "emoryi". You might be interested in the fact that there are three subspecies of emoryi though, they are listed on "CNAH's"(Center for North American Herpetology)located at .....cnah.org if you'd like to check that out.

The taxonomy on many ratsnakes lately has been really confusing to alot of people(including myself), so don't feel alone!!LOL

Where exactly did you catch this emoryi?...county and state?

best regards, ~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Morris County,Kansas.
I cant wait to see it after it sheds.Thanks
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That should be a very nice looking snake!,....good find!

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

I recently caught an adult female who is real docile and a great feeder. I'm gonna breed her to an albino corn male to create my own creamsicle corns. The offspring from this mating are called rootbeer corns, and are all het for albino, which creates creamsicles.

I think your snake could very well be a subspecies of Great Plains Ratsnake(E.emoryi meahllmorum), after it sheds how about showing a few pics to the guys over at the "ratsnake" forum!, they deal with these subspecies all the time, and they have a bunch of posts with photos of these very same snakes over there as we speak!

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

No shed yet.But I will try and get some more pics before I let him go.Kinda curious as to what they say..
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after the eyes TOTALLY clear up for the snake to shed it's skin.

And as for it being "emoryi", or "emoryi meahllmorum", it's really basically the same thing with a few minute differences.(blotch size, spacing, etc..), it would still be 100% Great Plains Ratsnake, only a slightly different race of one, and another possibility is it could be a natural intergrade between the two!......that probably wouldn't matter to you as much as it does to hard-core breeders,....we like to get extremely accurate and "split hairs"!!LOL.......if you've visited some other snake forums here much, you know what I mean!LOL

anyway,..best regards, ~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

I was wondering how you can tell the difference between the Great Plains Ratsnake and the Eastern Milksnake, because that pic looks like many Eastern Milksnakes I've seen before in books. I just googled both and got images that look very very similar. I'm not questioning your ID of the snake, I'm just curious on how to tell the difference.
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-David

1.0 ball python (Pandora - don't ask)
1.0 argentine boa (Prometheus)
0.1 hogg island boa (Andromeda)
0.0.1 brazilian rainbow boa (Inara)
1.0 kenyan sand boa (Diablo)
1.0 nornal corn snake(Cypress)
0.1 amery. corn snake (Morgan LaFay)
0.0.1 banded cali. kingsnake (Cain)
1.0 tangerine honduran milksnake (Narcissus)
0.0.1 snow corn snake (Valkyrie)
1.0 amazon tree boa (Pegasus)
0.0.1 sandfish skink (Slick)
1.0 dog (Luke)

You're right!,....they are VERY similar looking!

these snakes get confused with one another very often!
There are actually a few VERY distinct differences in these two snakes, but most of them are small, subtle differences.

The "emoryi" has a more distinct "chevroning"(arrowhead pattern)
on top of it's head when compared to the eastern, it has a less distinct filagree type pattern.
The eyes on emoryi are also slightly larger than Eastern Milks, in addition to having a slightly longer, more tapering nose with a more distinct band across the eye/nose area.

Easterns eyes many times have a rusty, to very vivid red/orange iris, as compared to emoryi's tannish colored irisis.

Easterns necks are a little more thicker, and robust than emoryi, especially in adults, as with all the "Lampropeltis" group(milks and kings) they are more built to over-power prey such as other snakes(thus the name kingsnake).

Another pattern difference not seen when looking at the snake from the top would be the belly pattern. On Easterns, they have more of a "mottled", random pattern of small blotching, rather than a more distinct pattern of "checkering as in cornsnakes, and emoryi.

And several big differences in scalation(meristics) are evident in these two snakes as well. The anal plate is divided in two on emoryi, whereas it is a single plate on all Lampropeltis, including the Eastern Milksnake.

So although they do indeed look alike in many ways, these are some of the differences that set these two snakes apart from one another.
Hope this helped a little!

best regards, ~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

wow, you should write a book solely on how to tell the differences in similar looking snakes!! lol I did some more looking around, and found the Arizona elegans (glossy snake) and Elaphe vulpina (fox snake)that also look similar to the one in the pic. And then there are Anerythristic corn snakes that can look similar, although not as much as the others. I'm glad I'm not trying to ID these snakes, I'd make a fool of myself!
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-David

1.0 ball python (Pandora - don't ask)
1.0 argentine boa (Prometheus)
0.1 hogg island boa (Andromeda)
0.0.1 brazilian rainbow boa (Inara)
1.0 kenyan sand boa (Diablo)
1.0 nornal corn snake(Cypress)
0.1 amery. corn snake (Morgan LaFay)
0.0.1 banded cali. kingsnake (Cain)
1.0 tangerine honduran milksnake (Narcissus)
0.0.1 snow corn snake (Valkyrie)
1.0 amazon tree boa (Pegasus)
0.0.1 sandfish skink (Slick)
1.0 dog (Luke)

BTW, I didn't say it in the last post, but thanks for the information! I feel smarter after reading it
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-David

1.0 ball python (Pandora - don't ask)
1.0 argentine boa (Prometheus)
0.1 hogg island boa (Andromeda)
0.0.1 brazilian rainbow boa (Inara)
1.0 kenyan sand boa (Diablo)
1.0 nornal corn snake(Cypress)
0.1 amery. corn snake (Morgan LaFay)
0.0.1 banded cali. kingsnake (Cain)
1.0 tangerine honduran milksnake (Narcissus)
0.0.1 snow corn snake (Valkyrie)
1.0 amazon tree boa (Pegasus)
0.0.1 sandfish skink (Slick)
1.0 dog (Luke)

n/p
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Thanks for the compliment.....and yes, I also agree with you on the fact that all those snakes you just mentioned do indeed look very similar!
It gets fairly easy to tell different snakes apart from each other after decades of working with, and reading about them, that's for sure!.......I've been deeply involved with snakes since the age of seven!.......luckily my parents didn't have any problem at all with me owning snakes as a kid.
As a matter of fact, my mom even bought me many snakes when I was young from a friend of hers husband. He lived in Dade County down in south Florida and she bought me Indigos, awesome looking "Miami" phase Cornsnakes, Florida Kings(brooksi, and floridana),Yellow Ratsnakes, etc.......I have fond memories of bringing big Indigos to my third grade class for show&Tell back in 1968 when they were legal to own!!.

Anyway, thanks again for the nice words, and I hope you enjoy owning snakes as I certainly have over the past forty years!

best regards, ~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Not that it's necessary, since Doug did a heads up job of 'splaining the differences..but there's one more. The ratsnakes have a body that is, in cross-section, shaped like a loaf of bread...rounded on top, flat sides, flat ventral, while the kingsnake/milksnake group is more of a typical round in cross-section snake shape.

~~Greg~~

thanks for adding in a very important "key" difference that I like to tell people about as well!......the "loaf of bread" analogy is also my favorite way to explain to folks about the anatomical differences in body shapes of snakes!LOL

Those sguare edges are certainly what makes the ratsnakes some of the best climbers in the world!

best regards, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"