Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was in Missouri, vernon county by the osage river, the bluffs. in schell city.

And I took some pictures of some snakes.
the one in the pic. I couldn't identify.
can anyone tell me what it is?
I'm kinda getting into snakes atm.

you can find more pictures here ;

http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l94/meilliyon/snakes/

Gotta be some type of rat snake. Great Plains Rat or Black Rat, probably.

I can't view the rest of the pictures (firewall).

http://mdc.mo.gov/nathis/herpetol/snake/snake1.htm

I'm still new at this, but my guess would me a Great Plains Rat Snake [Elaphe guttata emoryi]. Correct me if I'm wrong.
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1.1 Rosy Boa
0.1 Mexican Rosy Boa
1.0 Coastal Carpet Python
1.0 Miniature Daschund

Due to some further research, I changed my mind. I belive it is a jeuvenile black rat snake [elaphe obsoleta obsoleta].
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1.1 Rosy Boa
0.1 Mexican Rosy Boa
1.0 Coastal Carpet Python
1.0 Miniature Daschund

Cool, I kinda reached the same conclusion. just had to be sure.

Thx a lot!

That's what I was thinking too. If he was bigger, I'd say great plains.
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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake (Eddie Gein)
0.0.2 Cornsnakes
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Black Cat (Shadowfax)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan) (Deceased )
1.0 Tennessee Walking Horse (Durango)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

At least out here in TN we can separate obsoleta group (gray an black rats) from guttata group (corns, but also including Great Plains rats) by the length of the postocular stripe. On gray and black rats, it stops at the jaw (like on your little fellow); on corns it continues well onto the neck. I don't know if this applies to emoryi too; can anyone corroborate or deny this feature?

According to my field guide the great plains rat snake has a stripe that goes on past the jaw into the neck and there is a spear point marking that starts the stripes. The black rat snake's stripe stops at the jaw.
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1.1 Rosy Boa
0.1 Mexican Rosy Boa
1.0 Coastal Carpet Python
1.0 Miniature Daschund

56456456
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Diego

It's a juvenile Black Ratsnake. Their range in Missouri covers the entire state with the exception of the extreme lower right portion, which is also inhabited by the Gray Ratsnake.

Vernon County is on the opposite lower middle portion of the state, which indicates it can only be a Black Ratsnake of a basically pure lineage.

~Doug
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/maps/stout29.gif

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

Where's that map from? It's quite inaccurate with regards to Tennessee, at least. I have noticed, though, that rats from along the Mississippi in Missouri and Arkansas tend to be darker than their counterparts on the TN/KY side, so the "intergrade" area it shows there makes sense.

None of this affects the OP's snake being a black rat, of course, I'm just curious about the map.

A book by ~R.D., and Patricia Bartlett, titled..."Corn Snakes and Other Rat Snakes"~1996

What exactly was the discrepency that you were referring to?. Of course I'm certainly not saying there isn't, or can't be, because I see mistakes in literature quite often myself. As a matter of fact, MOST books I've seen regarding snakes have some sort of mistakes, or misprints to some degree. I would also agree that there's a certain amount of deviation to almost anything such as this map with absolute defined borders printed on it, since there's no "real" way of stopping anything from venturing one side, or the other, etc...

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

range maps with herps often tend to be horribly inaccurate and should be used as a general guide at best (as I'm sure you all know). Back in 1995 when the atlas program in Vermont started there was a line drawn right through the middle of the state denoting that below that line there were four-toed salamanders and above it there weren't. Range maps are often a game of connect the dots and the people who draw them know that a species occurs in point A and point B but without reports above either of those points they can only draw a line from one to the other and try to make it match up with geographical features. Since 1995 four-toed salamanders have been found in Northern VT as well as well up into Canada. If that map is from '96 then who knows what has been learned since then...

That ratsnake map puts ratsnakes in southwestern vermont but they have never been reported from there despite large amounts of survey work. that is the opposite case as above in that after connecting the dots the range map placed a species in a place where they probably do not occur. I've got nothing against range maps, I just think everybody should to understand that the people who draw them never have time to survey and determine the absolute range for themselves -- all they usually do is collect the data available at the time and make a best guess as to where the range boundaries occur based on the information they could find. Individual state maps are often accurate but even then they should not be taken as fact. If we knew where every herp occurred in VT we would not have a need for survey work (of which there is plenty).

Oh, I agree 100% on that as well, they can only be taken VERY generally, and each dip and bend in the line doesn't mean they can't be far away from what is illustrated. As you said, it's just based on whatever data was available, or even just the particular data the author/illustrator chose to use at that time.

But for the sake of the snake in question on the original post, it was smack dab in the middle of pure Black Ratsnake territory.....and I certainly do agree with your point on range maps as a whole.

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

i love range maps, just always bear in mind that wildlife knows no political boundaries
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2 tham radix
1 Chicago Tham s. semifasciatus
2 elaphe vulpina
1 gray tiger sallie
4 Aphonopelma hentzi
2 G rosea
1 Haplo minax

Thanks!

The boundaries between subspecies/color phases are the odd thing. Genuine Black Ratsnakes in Tennessee are restricted to the Cumberland Plateau and Blue Ridge Mountains of East TN; the map shows them broadly distributed in the lowlands of Middle TN and the Ridge and Valley, which are inhabited by Gray Rats and intermediates between the two. The indication that Yellow Ratsnake influence is present in southeastern TN is also odd; that area is occupied by Gray Rats, though as elswehere in the state they are variable in color and often have high proportions of yellow. The few striped ratsnakes I have seen in the state have been just oddball grays, and they have been mainly in northern Middle Tennessee.

black rat 4 sure
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2 tham radix
1 Chicago Tham s. semifasciatus
2 elaphe vulpina
1 gray tiger sallie
4 Aphonopelma hentzi
2 G rosea
1 Haplo minax