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According to my sex probes - my attached signature is a smurfing lie.

I found this Pac Gopher on 4/11 in the vicinity of the Sacramento River up here in Redding.

Visually I guessed male, but I just probed.
The probe only goes up a few scales on either side - but it seems to me to be an awfully long tail for a female.

Most of my recent experience is with common kings and corn snakes. Do female pits have much longer tails than those colubrid cousins of theirs?

Some more pics of the pit:

and one of the tail:

I've no problems correctly sexing kings with a probe.
This pit if female is clearly not gravid - it's the right time of year for female pits to be gravid, but I know they don't always breed every year. The probe does stop after about 3 scales - but that tail is just so long.

Opinions welcome.
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3.6 L. getula californiae - 5 eggs (Cal. King)
1.1 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
1.0 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
3.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

By looking at the shape of the tail and definatly if it only probes 3 scales I would say female for sure. The tail does not look unusully long. Randy W.

Thanks.

She's an awesome snake. Has a few scars - including a nasty one on her chin (seems to be healed though).

Extremely docile, no attempts to bite - and today I offered her food, she took it right away. She's got a good temperment.

She gets the mice down faster than kings that outsize her too. Much faster. I may try small rats. The poop she gave me from whatever she last ate in the wild was from a humongous meal.
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3.6 L. getula californiae - 19 eggs (Cal. King)
1.1 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
3.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

When I first looked @ your pics on the other site, I thought she was under breeding size, but a second look makes her appear larger. How big is she? The 3 females I have, though different ssp (SanDiego & Great Basins) all have fairly long tails. Great looking snake. Had you been hoping to see one for a while?

reako45

She's almost four foot.

I was going out of town the day I collected her and the only suitable tank I had in a room separate (quarantine) from the rest of my collection was a 4' x 18" footprint tank (I had a young male boa in it I was fostering) - she crawls the length of the tank, head to tip of tail *almost* is the 4' length of the tank.

-=-

I had a lot of gopher snakes in my younger years. It was the first species I ever kept, and they were plentiful in west Contra Costa County where I grew up.

Since moving here to Redding, I haven't found a "sweet spot" for them yet. I have found several DORs (including a monster close to but I don't think quite 5 feet) but they are on streets with posted no trespassing signs on the adjacent fields. The places where I can herp up here that are suitable for them thus far have only produced Cal Kings. This one was only barely collectible - it was on a public trail (Sacramento River by Turtle Bay), but the field on the other side of the trail is fenced off as a nature preserve.

They supposedly are fairly common up here - I just haven't found the spots that produce yet. Some even suggest they are even more common than Cal Kings up here, but I find a fair number of those in several spots.
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3.6 L. getula californiae - 19 eggs (Cal. King)
1.1 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
3.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

The tail in the pic pretty clearly is tapering directly behind the vent. That is a female character.

Males have tubular long tails directly behind the vent. This tail is not particularly long.

Guess from a remote locale?

FEMALE!

Happy happy.
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