Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just based on sight alone. Is there an individual character to differentiate between "Temporalis" and Syspila?
Thanks!
-Phil

Uhhhh, nope.
Is there a single morphologic character to distinguish between triangulum and syspila? Maybe.
Good question Phil. WTF is temporalis anyway? Is the subspecies
concept valid for Lampropeltis triangulum? For anything?
My head hurts.............

"Temporalis" is the term used for Coastal Plains Milksnakes.
At one time they were recognised as a legitimate ssp., and is still debated as such, by many in the hobby. The term is now used as a way to distinguish Coastals from the common Eastern Milksnake. Herpetologists now say that Temporalis are just an intergrade between L.t.triangulum X L.t.elapsoides. Here's a link to Tony D.'s article on the subject.
-Phil
Link

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Phil, I was being a bit sarcastic. Personally, I don't think that "Milk" snakes interbreed with Scarlet Kingsnakes anywhere.
I'm convinced that Scarlet Kings do not interbreed with milk snakes here in Alabama, or Tennessee, or Kentucky etc. What, exactly, are the "coastal plains" snakes? Well, I dunno. Maybe they're a color/pattern morph of "Eastern" Milks. Morphologically, if you look at the milk snakes of north Alabama and north Georgia (and extreme north S. Carolina), there is some weird stuff going on. If you are a subspecies kind of guy, it is pretty easy to say that milks in north central and northeastern Alabama are for the most part intergrades between syspila and triangulum. In NW Alabama most of the milks appear to be referable to syspila, although an occasional snake is found that looks like an "eastern". In extreme NE Alabama, a lot of the milks look like "easterns", but some appear to be influenced by syspila. Same story in north GA, where there are milks that have blotches that extend down to scale row 2 up from the ventrals (a syspila character I guess). It's all confusing as hell really. So much variation. Here's a snake from north Georgia. What do you call it? triangulum X syspila? triangulum X temporalis?
temporalis? triangulum X syspila X temporalis? triangulum X elapsoides X temporalis? WTF?

Here's another milk from north georgia...

Looks like a damn nice milk to me! LOL!
-Phil
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I'll Google your MySpace
If you Yahoo! my YouTube!