Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been reading for many years now about how the coastal plains milksnake resulted from the breeding of eastern milksnakes with scarlet kingsnakes. Has anyone ever seen or have first hand knowledge of such a pairing? Has anyone ever seen the scarlet kingsnake mate with anything but another scarlet kingsnake? I think it's much more likely that the coastal plains milksnake's ancestors were a red milksnake and an eastern milksnake.

It doesnt seem possible, but if not mistaken, there has been DNA work done on the coastals to prove their lineage/genetics as scarlet by eastern. Dont quote me on this though. If I had to bet one of my children on this for a million bucks, I wouldnt take the bet LOL!! I have read in Bartlett and Markels book on kings and milks that the lineage was scarlet by eastern, and it is not a continous phenomenon all through their ranges where they overlap. I think it may also be a relict integrade much like the eastern king complexes, so that may also contribute to the current "look" of this particular snake. Its probably not a current integrade thing going on, but one that occurred in the past to form its own "species" or locality based animal through the years.

From the ones I have seen (LTT, syspila, coastals, no scarlets though) I vote the red milk way. Of course I have a very limited education! I am sure this debate will go on - and on ----

Rostral scalation and head shape show definate scarlet influence as far up as MD. Too many people look at color and thats all they see. My bet is the OP has never held a wc coastal, no offense. They are different animals from locale to locale thats why so many people "try and keep them pure"....

is this an ongoing integradation, or relict?

While I cant define "it", and I'm certain no one else can either. There are many different populations with what are likely several degrees of relativity. Each of these are different, and that is the basic reason why "temporalis" doesnt really work as a ssp.. Each of these pockets, islands if you will, may have its own lineage. The genetic work, I havent heard anything substantial on it. There were a few guys working on it but I havent heard of any "conclusion".

Interesting point you make regarding the phenotypic differences amongst the populations. It appears similar to me as the eastern kings with their different integrades/isolations/population or demographic expressions. Very interesting. I never really paid attention to temporalis, or really any of the NA milks to be honest. Also seems similar to the various populations of mexicana animals and the now defunct mexicana/thayeri/greeri subspecifications.

That's pretty much the way I see that too Jeff. No real "one answer" to it, they are their own unique entities of their individual areas of origin, and surprisingly complex.

From what I have gathered, they don't seem to breed with most elapsoides from nearby populations either as Joseph T. Collins noted. Seems pretty odd, but as we all know, many animals do not have to follow human rules either...LOL!

DNA testing concluded that this was the case with the SF Mole King(occipitolineata) as well where it might overlap with the more common wider ranging rhombomaculata. Very interesting stuff if you ask me.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

NEVER ENDING.....each population may reflect adaptation to the unique microhabitat of the environment???....which might account for the structural differences in the separate locales????....eastern north carolina is more southern pine lands influenced(more elapsoides type traits)...while south maryland shows more deciduious forest influence....(more triangulum type traits).......but there's still the relict sysplia group.....

Very true indeed,........"round and round she goes,...where she stops, ...........nobody knows!"..LOL!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Don't really have the time for this but here is the thrust as I've put it together. As the ice sheets retreated from the last ice age, prevailing arid conditions allowed prairie vertebrates, including syspila to migrate eastward. To the south these pioneering milk snakes integrated with elapsoidies and to the north they integrated with triangulum.

At the peak of the migration the complex was widespread but as more mesic conditions returned ideal habitat became fragmented. Basically nature shuffled the deck and is using this increased genetic diversity to adapt to changing conditions just as Bob points out.

Interesting stuff when you add time to the mix and stop looking at the snap shot we see today.
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

I think you not only hit the nail on the head, you drove it through the wood with your statements! The processes that shaped what we see today have occurred over centuries and mileniums. And, are still ongoing as we post on this forum. There is no doubt that all the lampropeltid snakes shared common ancestery at one point in geologic time. Once again, think thousands and millions of years ago. We can see how a reduced genetic pool can dramatically change the phenotypical expression of subspecies in captive breeding programs in a few generations. Known locality stock not looking anything like their wild counterparts still thriving in those localities. Why should be expect nature to act differently? I think the wide array of phenoms we see today within the respective "subspecies" has been shaped by countless years of isolation/fragmentation followed by periods of overlap and accessibility by one means or another of the genes pools which has occurred SEVERAL (100s??, 1,000s??) times to present day.

sometimes the dynamic changes in species aren't appreciated.....even though they are moving foreward with each generation to keep pace with environmental shifts.....question....does our selective breeding stop this???......

Bob, I dont think you can ever stop evolution. From what I have learned on these forums regarding changes in CB locality animals vs. what still lives in the natural locality, I am leaning towards these CB populations being in a manmade isolation zone similar to what may occur in the natural populations if an island formed, or a mountain valley became isolated for various geologic reasons. I dont think you are "stopping" changes from occurring in captivity. The changes are just reflecting the new "habitats" these CB populations are now living within and the genetic pools they have to draw from.

Before morphs came on the scene and pyros were still difficult to captive breed a funny thing was noticed. The amount of black in cb specimens was noticably diminished compared to wc specimens. To me, this was beyond selective breeding, it was a adaptation to more stable temps of captivity.

"it was a adaptation to more stable temps of captivity"
naaaaah ya got it all wrong man...it's cuz we don't keep 'em on dirt.

:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

No our snake rooms just become the new locality! With environmental influences removed one can only reason that the evolutionary trajectory of the animals in such a captive gene pool is altered. Among the environmental influences remove is the possibility of integration with other forms. I don't think this is right or wrong. I just see wild snakes and captive snakes in completely different ways. In the wild I see dynamic populations, in captivity I see individuals.
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

but definitely changed!! NOTHING lives in a vacuum, and you cannot consider captive conditions a vacuum. Basically, I am looking at an isolated population (like on an island) with a stablized climate/geography/food source. The same animals would probably react the same in the wild under similar situations. I am surprised no one has conducted any experiments on this in captivity. Take 2.2 sibs produced in captivity. Basically (albeit not realistically) the same genetics. Keep each pair in different sized caging, offered different food sources/quantity, and temps. Line breed each pair and see what you get phenotypically in a couple of generations.

I think most would aknowledge that there are simply too many factors to take into account for it to be statistically significant. In captivity we change EVERYTHING, there are many things we change without even knowing or understanding the ramifications. Though husbandry has improved 1000% over the last 20 years our understanding of the environment in which they live hasnt improved all that much at all. And anything interpretted as "needs" in captivity has no correllation to the significance of environmental factors. Its a big thing on this forum and in the hobby as a whole now to give snakes CHOICES. I think you will admit that the understanding of these choices is still in its infancy...

I would say natural selection pressures are removed. What happens in captivity is "artificial selection".
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

I think our work with captive breeding has made something even more evident. These are some of the most VARIABLE snakes from the beginning, these "island" populations dont need hundreds or thousands of interactions with other populations to make such differences....only a few would do it. A few interactions(likely with changes in sea levels but maybe due to "storm of the century" type events)plus isolated environment plus genetic variability plus time and literally anything is possible.
Tony's crosses also allude to just how easily each of these locality types can change...within a single generation!

"DNA testing concluded that this was the case with the SF Mole King(occipitolineata) as well where it might overlap with the more common wider ranging rhombomaculata"
Where do they overlap?
I know of one supposed confirmed sfmk found in central FL turned out,after dna analysis,to be a cornsnake!
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

Maybe a better term might have been...."where they might abut".

"I know of one supposed confirmed sfmk found in central FL turned out,after dna analysis,to be a cornsnake!"

LOL!!, I really have to wonder what kind of moron's would go through all that money and effort to test a VERY specific subspecies of snake only to find out it was really a cornsnake..HAHAHAA! Now I have heard of some sheer stupidity before, but that takes the cake man!..LOL! That blunder almost sounds like made-up comedy it is so ridiculous..hahahaa!

Anyway, CNAH(Joseph Collins) simply stated that occipitolineata do not intergrade nor exchange genes, that's all I was really getting at. I do know rhombo's go down into Florida, but not sure as to exactly how far. If there is a margin of sorts where there is neither one, then ....my bad!

~Doug
link

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

....yeah, I don't know why my lead in was "Tony" but..anyway....
You probably know of that specific one that was found either in Lake or Orange county on or near I-75? Cornsnake.
I only know of moles found as far down as the panhandle but there may be others and it seems that there is a good part of the peninsula where neither are found, right?...
SFMK range is obviously farther south..
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

I can't say I was aware of that particular incident regarding the cornsnake. What a "keystone cop" thing that must have been..LOL!

Yeah, there has to be a fairly large void of area that doesn't have either one is what seems logical to me too. The farthest northern documentation seems to be a photo of one taken from northern Brevard County, which is well north of where most are known from. Nevertheless though, I have always wondered about exactly where the location would be for the absolute northernmost SFMK. When you think about it, somewhere out there is ONE individual specimen that is the absolute northernmost one in existence..LOL!. Wouldn't it be cool to also know you owned that exact northern most one??. Totally impossible, but a neat thought just the same.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

My claim to fame with moles is finding the northern-most Mole locale in MD....I'm sure others have hunted there as well...

Yeah, that's pretty cool Jeff!.

Got any pics of those rhombo's?

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

"LOL!!, I really have to wonder what kind of moron's would go through all that money and effort to test a VERY specific subspecies of snake only to find out it was really a cornsnake..HAHAHAA! Now I have heard of some sheer stupidity before, but that takes the cake man!..LOL! That blunder almost sounds like made-up comedy it is so ridiculous"

Just playing devils advocate here but this may not be the case. Lets just say for poops and giggles that a wild male mole king bred with a wild female corn producing a generation of wild F1 hybrids. By “phenotype” the F1 generation is obviously hybrid but the mitochondrial DNA is pure corn snake. From this clutch one female survives, breeds with another mole king and produces an F2 clutch. The F2s would look more like mole kings but the mitochondrial DNA is still that of a pure corn snake. Any females from this clutch that managed to breed with a mole king would likely produce a generation that by phenotype would look like pure moles but when testing for mtDNA would prove to be corn snake.

My personal opinion is that something like this happens more often than we think particularly during times of rapid ecological change. Number one the DNA molecule just finds a way to survive period and number 2 the laws of entropy would kind of require a shuffling of the genetic deck to allow rapid adaptation (punctuated evolution) when the ecologic matrix has been overly disturbed.

Anyway, the first question should be what kind of DNA test was performed? If it was a full DNA test then yes the guy was likely not the sharpest crayon in the box. If it was just an mtDNA scan then we don’t have enough information to say.
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

Yeah, anything is possible I guess, and we really don't know ANY of the details at all about exactly what was tested on what type of animal either..*shrug*..LOL!

Could have been a young anery corn from southwestern Florida for all we know..LOL!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

K. Krysko has it I believe.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

"K. Krysko has it I believe"

I certainly know Krysco knows what he is doing, but exactly "WHAT" does he have??. A picture of this animal that is said to have pure cornsnake genes would certainly be nice to see..LOL!

One snake that was found somewhere could very easily have hybridized with something and contain cornsnake DNA, but I seriously doubt that the rest of the known population of occipitolineata have cornsnake DNA.

Like what the heck did this alleged snake even "look" like??, know what I mean? Was it a perfect looking SFMK phenotype like the one's you and I have had?, or does it not look quite right, or what?.

So where did you get the info on this?, I would like to check it out as well. I couldn't "google up" anything with any key words about it.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

I've been pondering this all day. I'd like to see a pick too. It would be much easier on the brain gears if its wasn't a typical SFMK. Otherwise I would have to figure out why we don't see cross species mtDNA all the time! Is there some reason that hybrids almost alway breed back to the species of the original female? Frack, I need a beer.
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

I know what you mean Tony, It's sort of tough to fathom that the particular animal in question is an absolutely "text-book" representative of the form.

It does make you go...."inquiring minds want to know!", and I would certainly buy the magazine if I saw this particular story featured on the headlines at the grocery store too..LOL!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

..about all I "know" of the animal is that it was the one responsible for that tiny dot on some of their range maps.
I think Kenny somehow actually got the snake or parts of it?
I'll see what I can dig up...
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

That would be cool if you could dig up some more stuff about this. I would just love to know all the hard facts regarding this, as well as where it came from, and exactly what this animal looked like. It is more than likely that we will never know what it looked like though, only what he concluded, but we shall see.

thanks, ~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Lots of good responses to this question. Thanks to everyone, but I'm not for sure that anyone answered the question. Has anyone seen or have firsthand knowledge of scarlet kings ever mating with eastern milksnakes? I didn't want to come right out and say it, but I'm kind of sceptical as to whether a scarlet king is a kingsnake at all. I'm not a scientist and I don't know squat about DNA, but going by looks alone, I'd say that the scarlet kingsnake looks a lot more like a scarlet snake than any kingsnake or milksnake. I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of flack over this position, but going back to my original statement, I think that way back when, red milksnakes ranged further east than at present and they overlapped with the range of the eastern milksnake and the two intergraded and produced the coastal plains milksnake. And no, I have no evidence to support this mad hypothesis, only visual impressions. I have seen a few coast plains milksnakes at some of the snake shows in southern California and I've seen a few dozen pictures, and all of them look a lot like what I imagine a red/eastern milksnake intergrade would look like. None of them looked like scarlet kingsnakes.

AHHHH, snakes arent what they look like. Color means almost nothing. There are systemacists that catagorize species and subspecies based upon homologous relation. They look at the bones, the dentition, the scalation, etc and base their interpretation upon these much more difficult to change factors. And they didnt just start doing things like this, this is why for centuries we have been collecting specimens for catagorization. This is why we can interpret dinosaur fossils. To say scarlet kings are related to scarlet snakes to me is the same thing as saying T.Rex is related to the Wooly Mammoth because they were both BIG. Not the same thing but I think you understand my point.

i might get rocked here, but i din't believe the scarlet king is a true milksnake either....i'm not sure what it is...i think there is a study soon to be published that addresses this, but we may not all agree with its conclusion.....has anyone out there crossed elapsoides with triangulum???.....and got viable eggs???....temporalis does visibly look like triangulum x sysplia.....tony's presentation of the effect of the iceage was freaking awesome!!!!!!!!!

Many years ago(like 15)Carl Bartlett was super into coastals and figured he would have a try at it. Sure enough, fertile eggs, babies looking like....well you know. Its really too bad not many people believe in the systemnic results of our predicesors. You know that saying "those that dont know history are doomed to repeat it"?? I really hope that knowing it can be done STOPS people from trying it and doesnt encourage them.....

any pics around ......any publication???

Pics? Carl doesnt do many pics. Publication????? WTF are you talking about? It was pre-internet!

there were publications preinternet....that's WTF i'm talking about....too bad he didn't do pics......

StretchX and I tried it long ago with similar results. The female eastern was small, produced a small clutch of which only one hatched. It looked like a coastal but did not survive my attempts to get it started.

I've since done breeding experiments without allowing the animals to actually breed. New info suggests that theyari are closely related to milks while SKs are not. I can tell you from these experiments that if during the season you put any combination of coastal (only milk snake I have) with a SK and you'll see breeding behavior. Put any combination of thayeri and coastal together and you'll see nothing. Put any combination of SK and thayeri together and you'll see nothing.

Doesn't prove anything but in my mind it does raises questions about the conclusions of the DNA studies.
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

They are like language. Some females dont need language(HO's)but most do. And the choosing is ultimately up to the female. I think the variability alone of Thayeri would lead me to believe them closer related to milks....but the whole Mexicana complex is still a mystery to me.

Is elapsoides a full species yet?
Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/