Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I remember reading in a Ron Markel book, Kingsnakes and Milk snakes when his book first came out in the late 80's or early 90's. In his book he states that the Long nosed snakes are considered to be the closest relative to Kings.

Question is, has there been any further proof of this like DNA tests, ect to verify this? Or is this just his and or others opinions?

Scott D

Hakuna Matata!

Don't know that this answers your question, but -

Taxonomic Notes
Related to and sometimes similar in appearance to the California Kingsnake. Long-nosed snakes have most of the caudal scales in a single row, while Kingsnakes have caudal scales in a double row.

http://www.californiaherps.com/snakes/pages/r.l.lecontei.html
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I decided my old sig was too big.

It appears longnose prey on snakes much like kingsnakes.

This was an awful pic, on an awful night. We were stopped by border patrol, and we asked them not to hit snakes. So they passed us and ran center punched(done on purpose) 15 snakes in one pass. This pic was the last they hit.

The coachwhip was in the longnose, and there was a glossy in the coachwhip, but I could not get a pic of that as the border patrol was aiming at me next.

On a side note, in this part of the country, the border patrol is ruining habitat and killing animals(all animals) in a manner never seen before and no one cares. There are thousands of young city men, with a badge and a gun, and no fear of the law. They are bored out of their minds and do nothing but run over any animal they can.

In this part of the country, there are more of these folks from several agencies, then residents. My record is, 158 border patrol cars in a row. They have no clear job or task, except to harass people and cause their deaths(chase them deeper into the desert) If they catch them, they simply return them near the border to try again.

While this is a giant political problem, the unwarranted slaughter of our native animals is not political, its real. No cheers today

Like I said before. this country is going down the tubes fast. What bothers me the most is agencies and gov't working so hard to bust people like us who breed and keep snakes. The foot does not know what the hand is doing , OR CARES!.

I have no respect for law enforcemnt or anyone who is a LEO. They are all buch of scum that enforce laws that are wrong. That IMO is just as wrong as the idiots who put those laws there to begin with.

Ok, I will take a deep breath now.
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ÌÏËÙÍ ËÁÂE!
"You do not breed them, they breed themselves. That sorta takes you out of the picture. All you become is a poop scooper and cage cleaner"
Frank Retes

after your deep breath realize its spiraling to a climactic moment the aztecs said its dec.16th 2012...
people who kill animals(or anything) for just the simple pleasure of doing it are ignorant, ignorance is simply lack(or disregard) of knowledge. in the case of LEO purposely doing this they should certainly be held accountable as much as the next person is, sadly here in tx.anyway they have went so far as to enact ANY ROW herp "off limits" this means if you are driving down a country rd. and see a turtle/herp crossing the road it is ILLEGAL to stop and move the turtle(herp) to the other side of the road you cannot touch them even for photographing! now as a thouroughbred texan i will tell you we(natives) including most LE disregard this stupidity, but still its there and enforcable. make no mistake our land of the free is crumbling the question is what are all of us as individuals going to do about it? remember LEO as is every single person is a part of that "us".
i KILL ignorance about snakes and nature every chance i get with every person i speak to everyday, the more we(herp hobby) do this the better it will be for our wild snakes. i just gotta beleive that, see ya in a few weeks,,,,,,,,,thomas davis
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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

i KILL ignorance about snakes and nature every chance i get with every person i speak to everyday, the more we(herp hobby) do this the better it will be for our wild snakes. i just gotta beleive that, see ya in a few weeks,,,,,,,,,thomas davis

I like this statement. I thought it was worth posting again.

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ÌÏËÙÍ ËÁÂE!
"You do not breed them, they breed themselves. That sorta takes you out of the picture. All you become is a poop scooper and cage cleaner"
Frank Retes

It is a great statement! The only problem is there are far more people out there with ignorance and fear than those of us who know.

Scott D

That's a real beauty of a speck there! Frank, cannot someone report this to the local sheriff or is that a one way strret as well in Arizona? I know down in west Texas there are some LE officers that answer the calls.
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Todd Hughes

What one could do, though it would be difficult, would be to videotape such an occurrences and post it on YouTube.

Get a nice rubber atrox (or a DOR atrox) and coil it up on the side of the road - with a hidden camera to record the vehicles swerving to hit it.

Bad press for the border patrol may result in some internal crackdowns.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

great idea. film it
,,,,,,,thomas
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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

Funky Res, this is a clever idea and may have merit. But you best be cautious and have your ducks in a row... It would be interesting to try and Team Up (irony...?) with Fish & Game, who are mandated to protect wildlife from abuse... This would be very embarrassing to the USBP who is image conscious, and the offending officers would pay some dues...as they will sacrifice the officer to save the agencies image. For all you "buerosy" types with contempt for LE, here is your chance to make a difference...will you step up to the plate or just rant? vic h.

Thanks Todd, he's from Arcadia Louisiana. I can't speak for Frank, but here in this part of NM, it's pretty much a one way street. BP and other agencies have more important things to tend to such as building the 20' high border wall and tracking down illegals. I've called BP, the Sheriff dept and the local police and get the same answer. It dosen't fall into their jurisdiction and really there is nothing they can do about it. (their words). Sad!

Scott D

Due to the war on drugs, (911)then homeland security, the border patrol, has rights that superceed the constitution and of course local, state and federal laws.

In a nutshell, they are immune to laws and the court system.

I did talk to many supervisiors(BP) and the common response was, yes its a problem and yes, they are suppose to be taught not to do that. But the turnover is faster then they can properly education their personal.

One supervisior said, What do you expect when you give youngmen, a gun and badge and no supervision. Consider aprox 90% of border patrol has less then two years experience. Cheers

Blue Rosy, do you think your reference to all l.e. being scum might be just a little too encompassing? It is hard for me to believe someone as intelligent as you could actually believe something so outrageously biased. Apparently you have not, but I have been helped and impressed many times by LE, and occssionally disgusted and burned. LEO are after all, human with strengths and weakenesses, and I have mostly been treated fair, a couple of negatives also.

FR, do you truly believe those guys are trying to kill snakes? If so, it is a variation on the well known USBP officer whom used to collect alterna/blairi back in the '70's.

I like the suggestion to set them up with a fake snake and film the action. This is beating them/LE at a favorite game, i.e. filming spot lighters shooting fake deer etc. Most fish & game departments have laws to prohibit wanton waste of the resource. If your film was conclusive and showed a deviation from safe driving practice, it might be evidentiary. For sure, it will higly embarrassing to the driver, and he will really have some explaining to do for embarrassing the Agency. But think it through and plan wisely, as if he crashes and gets hurt, you might incur some liability or at least the accusation of it. If you have the spine, demand that F&G assist you in your complaint about the BP wasting wildlife...apply pressure.

It grieves me to hear Blue Rosy and others with such negative impressions of LE. I used to educate USBP agents about reptiles as they stood by bored silly at a check point nearby. I also had to remind them to not trash the desert with their off road shennanigans...but other times they helped me. They were always professional and courteous when stopping me, after setting off a sensor or stopping too frequently on the highway.
Hard to please some of you, if they stop you you resent it, if they don't, you say they are lazy... But wasting wildlife on company time is unacceptable, and I would like you to file formal complaints if you can make a good case. ID the vehicle, time and place, and if you have the skid marks on a fake snake, they will be embarrassed. vic h.

If they want to keep busy they should try and stop the flood of illegals into this country instead of running over animals. That is crock of $&@! Completely uncalled for on their part.
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don't marry the cow when the milk is free when the milk drys up it's time for a new cow

There is a real problem with illegals coming in but there is also a real problem with pursuing them - which often results in their flight into the desert followed by their death.

I'd rather immigration be done by legal means, but I also don't think they should be pursued into areas where they may die from the elements.

Most of them just want to make a better lives for themselves and their families. Unfortunately, they can't trade a few beads for land like the earlier European immigrants did.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

They are everywhere, including horse back and four wheelers in the sky islands. The people crossing the desert throw garbage everywhere. Where are the environmental wackos when you need them? I think the right kind of fence would work, but the politicians prefer to have Homeland Security look like Keystone Cops.

Check this story about the trash:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354398,00.html

AG Bull

And there is soooooo much more to it. Try those towers. Hmmmmmmmm why are they 4 to six miles from the border. Why are we giving mexico part of our country??????? Shouldn't they be on the border?????

Why are they cutting down trees (precious thing in southern az.) and widening roads(rudy rd.) to build more towers? Put them on the border.

Its not about stopping drugs or workers, Its more about spending tax money on a task that is never ending. The border patrol drives the drug smugglers back to mex so they can bring another load. Hmmmmmmmmm how odd is that.

Thanks for the info and pic Funky and Frank. Very sad pic to see, but all to common here too. I live in Deming New Mexico, not that far from you Frank, but anyway we have the same problem with Border Patrol here. I can't even keep track of the numbers of snakes I've literally seen Border Patrol swerve out of their way just to run over a snake or stop and use coyotes as target practice, they make me sick. I've been stoped so many times by them and the Sheriff dept and given the DWI tests, had my truck searched and with K9s all while doing night driving.

Yesterday evening went to the store down a good road for snake hunting, found nothing on my way to town. Coming back found 1 hognose DOA, 2 bulls, 1 desert king, 1 Big Bend patch nosed and 2 black tailed rattlesnakes. All killed with in 30 minutes.

As much as I dislike the BP and cops in general, it's also John and Jane Doe that do a number on snakes in the road for no other reason than just to kill them. It is nothing, but unwarranted slaughter and harassment by BP and the local cops. Think they would have something better to do like feasting at the donut shopes.

Scott D

But sometimes longnose are the meals. Here a king ate a longnose. Tyler.

pics of my Longnosed snake.