Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Of Pit is this?

nate, appears to be a nice tri colored bullsnake. do you know anythig about it's locality?

Dan, I know the exact locality, I'm going to give it a while to see if anyone comes up with where it's from.

SOUTH JERSEY.....

I'll guess a bull from the northeastern part of their range.

Go the other way.

Nate

not all gophers look the same!
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Todd Hughes

True that!

looks like one of the big bulls Dan Eby posts, Montana?
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Todd Hughes

Almost.

I'll say Minnesota.
Steve

Nope

Don't know much about the snakes from that area, I am going to guess Idaho?

n/p

I'm gonna guess Eastern Washington.

reako45

Nice "guess"

The funny thing is these are supposed to be deserticola in this location not sayi from further east in Montana. You head a little south and they all look like this.

Most P. c afinis x sayi look very similar but these guys look nothing like their very close blood.

Interesting to me.

Here's a juvy from the same area as the first one.

Nate

Based on the pine needles' style and the granite it reminds me of Ponderosas and the Black Hills of SD.

Could be another part of the west too though like CO or WY..
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- Matt

1.0 Black Milk '04
1.0 Andean Milk '06
0.1 Eastern King '97
0.1 Bullsnake '09

Deductive reasoning Watson. not quite.

DELAWARE

SOMEONES BREEDING FACILITY IN OHIO!!!

A bull from the northern part of range or montane (lots of black), a Canadian perhaps (Alberta)?

I was thinking it looked a lot like some of the Medicine Hat Bulls.

I guess people don't read all of a thread,

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1791503,1791954

It's from North eastern Washington.

Nate

nate, if that's the case then i'm thinking it's an escaped pet.....

...or an escapee or intentional release. I read the result above but kinda dismissed it as anything Washington is GB range, not bullsnake range. Now I've been wrong with these "what kind is that" scenarios plenty before because the natural variation within even locality groups can be fairly wide.

That looks more like a bullsnake than otherwise but if it was wild caught in eastern Washington, it's a case like my GB that was wild caught deep within San Diego Gopher range. A beautiful and classic southeastern Cal. GB but I'm betting it had some two-legged help ending up in coastal southern Cal.

Anyrate, awesome looking snake regardless, it would be a keeper in my book regardless of the source location. The only way to know source without much doubt would be to tag onto a bullsnake genetic eval if anyone is currently doing that. I'm a big believer in the power of microsatellite markers for determining relatedness and tracing linage. Aside from that, it's a game of pouring through locality records and hoping that external morph features alone get you in fairly close. Currently playing that game with my southern Cal GB.

There are a lot of great keepers and enthusiasts out there so please don't get me wrong or get offended but I often wonder what happens to the snakes (and other pets) that end up with people as the result of an "impulse buy", somehow survives some neglect and then they get tired of it. Others simply escape and are never found (at least by the original owner). Sorry for the diatribe but there it is...

I've seen close to 25 of them in a 50 mile radius, I highly doubt it's a released pet. This is a well know "goof" to us Pacific northwest field herpers. There are several glacial paths and flood plains that separate them from the Pits further south. The Montana bulls that are found and hour and a half east look exactly the same just seam to be a bit larger. If someone did some McDNA testing on them I would venture to guess they are closer related to sayi than P. c deserticola.

Nate

I have heard rumors of these animals for many years; have there been any papers written or studies conducted?

None that I know of, It makes me want to go to school to study these guys specifically.

Nate

...just get in the field and do the work; photos, scale counts, securing DORs, perhaps a voucher specimen. The animal in the photograph is a sayi in every respect, at least phenotypically, and if you have found/seen as many of these as you've said you really should persue this. PM me and we'll talk further.

Bart Bruno

Well in any case, that's a very nice looking snake. Worth looking into if anyone in that part of the country is currently evaluating snake genetics...