Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is a Knoxville, TN neonate m (I presume) snake that was found by some people in a park and obviously originally misidentified as a copperhead.

Again, obviously most snake people can tell it's not a copperhead, but I can't place a species on it either.

Any help?

it's about 6-7 inches long

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1.0.0 Lampropeltis getula holbrooki
0.1.0 Lampropeltis getula californae
0.0.1 Lampropeltis getula nigra
1.0.0 Lampropeltis mexicana thayeri
2.3.0 Eublapharis macularius macularius
0.0.2 Rhacodactylus ciliatus
0.1.0 Gerrhosaurus major major

Right now all we've come up with is some ssp of (American)brown snake......otherwise known as Dekays
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1.0.0 Lampropeltis getula holbrooki
0.1.0 Lampropeltis getula californae
0.0.1 Lampropeltis getula nigra
1.0.0 Lampropeltis mexicana thayeri
2.3.0 Eublapharis macularius macularius
0.0.2 Rhacodactylus ciliatus
0.1.0 Gerrhosaurus major major

Yep, that's what it is. Though is has a bit of an aberrant pattern. Ohio version of a DeKay's snake:

Third Eye

It is a brown snake (Storeria dekayi) but the pattern is consistent with TN's midland brownsnake subspecies "wrightorum" - those get more of those little crossbars than the ones that live in Ohio and the Northeast.

Also their patterns change as they grow, so a half-grown one like that will often have a little bolder patterning up front than a fully grown adult.

Billy

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Phillyherping