Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Fox snakes, just want to know what you guys think.

Neither...I believe they are more similar to the likely common ancestor to pines/ratsnakes than to either. Consider then "tweeners."
KJ
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KJUN Snakehaven
Pituophis.net
KJUN.us
Snakemorphs.us

I would have to agree with that at this time. For what it's worth, I hope they are what they are, like calligaster is to getula.
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Todd Hughes

I second that, but I believe there is alot more to it. I believe that the lineage of all North American colubrids is more complicated than anyone realizes!

Just curious, are those gloydi in the first two pics?

;.]'/.].;'

I've found both bulls and fox snakes in the same spots in NW Indiana. They both look somewhat similar as far as pattern goes, but to me the fox snakes are very different, more like a heavy bodied corn snake. Hatchling fox snakes strongly resemble black rat snakes, and feel like a rat snake. They don't hiss like pits, nor do are they as suited to burrowing. If you consider how variable other genuses like Lampropeltis are, fox snakes fit very nicely with the rat snakes in Pantherophis/Elaphe.

they don't hiss like pits. I'll give you that, but they do hiss, and hatchlings do resmble juvinile rats at first glance, but they are much stockier and thier rostral scale is very enlarged. They are capable diggers! I think they are something different. look at the majority of North American coubrids indigo, racer/coachwhip, rat/corn, fox, king/milk, bull/pine/gopher, hog nose, the list goes on and on, and all share a few similarities between individual species. I'm just saying maybe fox snakes should be put in their own group!

>>If you consider how variable other genuses like Lampropeltis are, fox snakes fit very nicely with the rat snakes in Pantherophis/Elaphe.

Well, you are going to have a fairly difficult time defending a taxon containing just ratsnakes (e. obsoleta) and fox snakes as not being paraphyletic. I don't see it as a plausible hypothesis based on the data that has been published to date. Shrug?

(from the below post)
> I'm just saying maybe fox snakes should be put in their own group!

If you want to make the smallest monophyletic group possible, I can agree that fox snakes could be placed into their own genus. It's been proposed (and not in a manner that is easily invalidated), but I personally find the "splitter attitude" hard to accept. Groupings, whether in taxonomy or not, lose the benefit of being a group if they are designed to exclude membership to such a minimum that nothing is actually placed together any longer.
KJ
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KJUN Snakehaven
Pituophis.net
KJUN.us
Snakemorphs.us

>>>>>>>>>