Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Are these the same snake?

Pituophis lineaticollis gibsoni
Pituophis lineaticollis lineaticollis

I have two of the latter on the way and from what I can tell there are two subspecies (I think). Any clarification would be appreciated.

Miller
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1.1 Florida King
1.1 Eastern Kings
1.1 Black Milksnake
1.1 Black Pine
1.0 Kankakee Bull Snakes
1.2 Still Water Hypos
0.0.1 Possibly stillwater x Red Bull
2.2 N. Pinesnake
1.0 Pituophis mutt
0.0.2 Plains Garter
1.0 Chow Chow(2003 Papi)
0.1 Cat(Shug

No, gibsoni is a subspecies of lineaticollis and it occurs futher south into Central America. As far as I know there are no gibsoni in private collections in the U.S. I am sure others can give you more info and/or correct me if I'm mistaken as I haven't referenced this species in a while.
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Matt Kauffman

Gibsoni and lineaticollis supposedly are two distinct subspecies of the same biological species. Since they are allopatric and morphologically distinct, and their supposed subspecific relationship has been based on appearance rather than evidence, they might as well be considered as distinct biological species.

BTW, I've never seen any gibsoni offered for sale. Wait, make that I've never seen any gibsoni (other than a few pictures), period.

good question.......

There is some pretty good info indicating that they are the same species with a distinction at the subspecies level.... think bull snake and sonoran gophersnake.

I know that there is a pair of them in Europe... Germany I believe, and we are working with 1.2 of them with Guatemala locality. (think good thoughts and maybe there will be offspring available in 2010!!!!)

Given the small sample size of these guys and the nominant form for that matter I can not really make anything but generalizations on how they differ. Most of the literature suggests that they differ via geographic distribution, but also gibson's line-necked pinesnakes tend to have dashed dorsal neck lines where as the nominant form have solid neck lines.......

the ones I have seen have a nice pale chocolate ground color. A fellow I know who sees them often described seeing a road killed adult that had a striking burnt orange ground color.... unfortunately that was not the norm....

here is am image of a P.l.gibsoni

Thank you'll for the information. If they are as rare as you say (gibsoni), I probably will not be able to afford them in 2010! lol Where do you find your information on them? I can't seem to find anything really substantial information wise about them.

Miller

>>good question.......
>>
>>There is some pretty good info indicating that they are the same species with a distinction at the subspecies level.... think bull snake and sonoran gophersnake.
>>
>>
>>I know that there is a pair of them in Europe... Germany I believe, and we are working with 1.2 of them with Guatemala locality. (think good thoughts and maybe there will be offspring available in 2010!!!!)
>>
>>Given the small sample size of these guys and the nominant form for that matter I can not really make anything but generalizations on how they differ. Most of the literature suggests that they differ via geographic distribution, but also gibson's line-necked pinesnakes tend to have dashed dorsal neck lines where as the nominant form have solid neck lines.......
>>
>>the ones I have seen have a nice pale chocolate ground color. A fellow I know who sees them often described seeing a road killed adult that had a striking burnt orange ground color.... unfortunately that was not the norm....
>>
>>here is am image of a P.l.gibsoni
>>
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1.1 Pituophis lineaticollis lineaticollis
1.1 Black Pine
1.0 Kankakee Bull Snakes
1.2 Still Water Hypos
0.0.1 Possibly stillwater x Red Bull
2.2 N. Pinesnake
1.0 Pituophis mutt
1.0 Florida King
1.1 Eastern Kings
1.1 Black Milksnake
0.0.1 Plains Garter
1.0 Chow Chow(2003 Papi)
0.1 Cat(Shug

There is not a lot of info on gibsoni, but maybe this will help. It also features 2 pictures of the variant refered to by Ginter as the "burnt orange" type.

http://www.pinesnake.de/english/pituophis/gibsoni.html

And here's a range map:

http://www.mexico-herps.com/category/serpentes/pituophis

Actually I was able to photographed that snake in the above link back in the late 90's. It was in the collection of the fellow who ultimately was responsible for us all having the nominant form P. l. lineaticollis. He was never able to get them to breed an eventually lost all of his gibsoni. That photo is very misleading as the snake was the same color as the one I posted above... Somehow during the creation of that image the basic tone quality was tweeked. The image probably gives you some idea of what an "orange" gibsoni might look like but that was not an "orange" one........

Bernd has that image posted on his Pituophis page and the original photographer was a fellow named Pat Briggs. That male was actually in bad shape and you can see his rostral scale is totally worn from cage rubbing, as well as a little maxillary bowing also from cage rubbing...... too bad.

Interesting story, albeit a sad one. Despite the nose rubbing it still looks like it could make it through war. Magnificent creature. Oh well...

I should have known better about the color though LOL, there's also a picture of a suspiciously yellow P. l. lineaticollis. Same photographer BTW.

http://www.pinesnake.de/english/pituophis/lineaticollis.html

yeah, that was a heart breaker... There was another pair of gibsoni that came into the US legally in the early 2000's . They laid eggs twice but nothing ever came of them and the pair languished and finally died. I had offered the fellow a g fair chunk of change for them, he refused thankfully as I dodged that bullet.....

I know the suspiciously yellow lineaticollis image and you are right to be suspicious. I don't think Pat intentionally doctored the color on either of those images but what ever happened caused the colors to not be very true........

I found those links in my search for information, but thank you for forwarding them to me. I guess what I really need is information on the husbandry temps,size of prey items etc...

Thanks again for all your help.

>>There is not a lot of info on gibsoni, but maybe this will help. It also features 2 pictures of the variant refered to by Ginter as the "burnt orange" type.
>>
>>http://www.pinesnake.de/english/pituophis/gibsoni.html
>>
>>And here's a range map:
>>
>>http://www.mexico-herps.com/category/serpentes/pituophis
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1.1 Pituophis lineaticollis lineaticollis
1.1 Black Pine
1.0 Kankakee Bull Snakes
1.2 Still Water Hypos
0.0.1 Possibly stillwater x Red Bull
2.2 N. Pinesnake
1.0 Pituophis mutt
1.0 Florida King
1.1 Eastern Kings
1.1 Black Milksnake
0.0.1 Plains Garter
1.0 Chow Chow(2003 Papi)
0.1 Cat(Shug

Guys, there is a guy named Carl that had Gibsoni out of the UT Arlington collection several years ago. But I am not sure if he ever bred them. I know he got eggs one year, but do not know of the turn out. I held the female at a herp club where I was giving a talk, she was a beautiful animal.
Cherryville Farms

Yeah, I mentioned those a few line up. Karl got the pair from a teaching/university collection. The curator was going to kill and pickle them but Karl managed to talk them out of it. They actually laid eggs two years in a row, the first year he was not expecting it and was out of town so the eggs dried up and the 2nd year the eggs were all duds....

He ultimately ended up losing both animals....... So close and yet just out of reach....

I hope that Dieter's pair and our group are able to break the bad luck cycle with this ssp. so that they may one become as common as the nominant form....

Can't wait to see pics on your new Ansa Barrego desert group....

Just thought to share a little pic of one of the Gibsoni, live in Germany!!

Meanwhile they are doing very well!

Dieter

Dieter,

Grow them up big and strong.....

hopefully we can trade hatchlings for diversity!!!!!!!!!

Hi John,

i will do my best!!!!

Great! Please let me know when you breed them.