Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is pure locality,Jeff

Chris

Had I had a choice though I think thats what I would have guessed.J

...Hypomelanistic Southern Copperhead with a twist of lemon.

I have seventeen of 'em.

Chris

Chris, I have moved to different places in the country but keep moving back to Mass because of the sarcastic sense of humor. Nice thayeri! Jeff

My guess is north Georgia, but I've seen snakes that looked like that from other areas too. It reminds me of this one from N. Georgia.

This one is about 2' long. How big is that one? Any pics of the adults? Dont they all kind of "maroon up"? I like the color and pattern, thats a nice one! J

How old is it?

Tony, did you mean how OLD is it? LOL, its wc, but I would say 05 and about 2' long. She is holding her red real nice, just what I was looking for earlier in the spring. Just hope she doesnt "maroon up" too much. Hit me with an email about eggs,thanks buddy,Jeff.......ps, will keep this up for another day or 2 then post the answer.

judging by it's looks she could easily be a jersey coastal-like those from the nw fringes of the pines- showing a touch of nomiante influence(these are of course highly variable-see pics below of somewhat similar animals from that area)....but now you've said she's wc so i'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's not from jersey,lol....so i'll go with a syspila integrade from some northern alabama locale.

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"with head raised regally,and gazing at me with lidless eyes,he seemed to question with flicks of his long forked tongue my right to trespass on his territory" Carl Kauffeld

No on the NJ call, not close to Alabama either. Wow, we have eliminated 5 STATES so far, I thought there might be some experts here who know NA milks,lol. This shows both the variability of milks and the relative lack of ID skills with NA milks. Kinda scary actually, maybe we have posted too many albino/morphs of them muttly central and south american ssp?? USA,USA, USA,lol. Come on guys, show some pride! Just kidding for course,Jeff

that third Milk is awesome. It's the only other one I've seen that resembles this north GA snake. Really dark maroon.
The variation in color and pattern of NA milks continues to amaze me. It's no wonder it's so hard to guess the locale of a snake.

scott

....here's one more pic of that one.some may say to try and do so is silly,but morphologically and geographically,i considered that snake to be roughly 65% eastern,35%temporalis.

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"with head raised regally,and gazing at me with lidless eyes,he seemed to question with flicks of his long forked tongue my right to trespass on his territory" Carl Kauffeld

Wow. I really like the looks of that snake. Thanks for sharing.

I got a pr of BLACK coastal plains from the notorious "chuck the snake man" out of MD about 92 or so. This was an adult pr of locality coastals(3' ),but not the same locality(one was St.Marys,the other from DC).They threw normal babies, and I wish I had pics, but they were almost completely BLACK-fading to dark maroon in the saddles but PURE WHITE bands. From more than 5' away ANYONE would have called them CHAIN KINGS. REALLY. I showed them to Steve Fuller one time and he was kinda dumbstruck...and didnt dare to put a price on em,lol. Wish I had em back, you guys know what I mean,Jeff

This girl was found this spring in the Shanandoah river valley of Virginia, on the West Virginia border. Its in the eastern/coastal "intergrade" zone, band depth and color are very variable. Thanks all for playing. I am more than a little surprised no one got the STATE though.....Take this as a sign for everyone to get out in the field and off the MORPH FORUM,lol. Jeff

Given you said MD was not the state I would have assumed something from the syspila range. VA West VA border is a bit removed from coastal range. Sure you didn't mean syspila X eastern integrade though even that's a stretch!

curious to hear a little more detail as to where along that long va/w.va border....check these photos out of a specimen from similar terrain,further down the fall line-a milk from oconee county,sc more or less the southern end of the appalachians....defintely some similarities to jeff schoffeld's pic.one thing about the milks-like them or not they are undeniably intruiging snakes,that's for sure.(pic courtesy of s.c. dnr)

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"with head raised regally,and gazing at me with lidless eyes,he seemed to question with flicks of his long forked tongue my right to trespass on his territory" Carl Kauffeld

They are very common all along the southern facing slopes in the loose shale. Be careful digging, you will find plenty of copperheads before you get to one,lol. The trail follows the Shanandoah River, the valley along it has very rich soil which supports alot of wildlife. I think the mountains form some sort of a barrier which keeps the kings out....as its all farmland leading up to it. This one was found right up in that little triangle between Va/Md/WV. I have found a dozen there, and every one is different. J