Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Fairly new to rat snakes, I've done much research over the last few weeks, referencing hundreds of sites for text & photos.

What I'm seeing is that coloration seems to be somewhat geographical:

1. Eastern specimens tend to be most solid & dark.

2. Mid range specimens tend to be black & white, with fading bands and solid tail.

3. Western specimens tend to have more red or rose coloration.

I'm I hasty in my judgment, or have you found this to be true also?

What western rats are you talking about?
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Matt Kauffman

SW Wisconsin, Iowa, Arkansas, Oklahoma.

Farthest western range.

Evolution reinforces what works. If a color or pattern is found in one area and not another, then there are things going on that made the changes come about.

If you read a little bit about N. American rat snakes, you will see that eastern rat snakes, Pantherophis alleghenies, come in orange with stripes, yellow with stripes, greenish with stripes, and black with little to no pattern. If you include Pantherophis guttata in your mix of rat snakes, then your theory doesn't match with the facts.

Keep studying, and posting. At least you are trying to make sense of what mother nature has brought about.

Good luck,

Rick

Makes sense.

I know that in many reptile species, color & pattern can vary greatly from region to region, and within local specimens.

Great examples of this are the Corn Snakes and Bull Snakes, Texas bulls tend to be lighter browns yet as you go north, the have darker browns, increased yellows till you get into Indiana and Ill, where they get a lot of black blotching- the Kanakee local is a prime example, and then they start to show more browns again as you get up in to Canada. The p. emoryi and the fox snakes show similar coloration to bulls along with the glossy snakes, which could also be due to their habitats placing demands on evolution to produce animals that have better camouflage for the area, the prairie rattlesnakes also look similar in coloration to the other colubrids that share their habitats. However, I might just have opened a whole can of worms, but this idea of coloration in conjunction to habitat has long been on my mind.
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1.1 Newton County Indiana Bulls
1.0 Texas Redish Bull
0.1 Kansas Yellow Bull
2.2 Red X Yellow Bull
1.0 Medicine Hat Alberta Canada Bull
1.2 Ball Pythons
1.2 Coastal Chocolate Cal Kings
1.0 Banded Desert Cal King
0.1 Gray Banded King
0.1 Jasper County SC Corn
1.2 Henderson County NC Black Rats
0.1 South Carolina Northern Pine

I forgot to mention corns, if you look at the Miami phase and other Fla snakes vs the snakes of SC and even to NC they change quite a bit, could this also be due to their coloration evolving to match their habitats?
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1.1 Newton County Indiana Bulls
1.0 Texas Redish Bull
0.1 Kansas Yellow Bull
2.2 Red X Yellow Bull
1.0 Medicine Hat Alberta Canada Bull
1.2 Ball Pythons
1.2 Coastal Chocolate Cal Kings
1.0 Banded Desert Cal King
0.1 Gray Banded King
0.1 Jasper County SC Corn
1.2 Henderson County NC Black Rats
0.1 South Carolina Northern Pine