Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Shannon, and other milk snake gurus, does this guy have more sinaloan or nelsoni influence? The ventral area is right where the solid black on the tail ends and touches the red. Steve

Steve,........ To be honest, it looks sort of intermediate between the two. The RBR count is very high(15 1/2?), with sinaloae having 10 to 16, nelsoni 13 to 18. The black outer triad rings are sort of an in between thickness and outward contour as well. One thing that I see that is definitely a nelsoni trait however is the incomplete first black ring under the throat there. Sinaloans throat rings are more connected and generally a forward "V" shape towards their snout.

There is a possibility that it could be an extremely thin black ringed nelsoni however. But more than likely an intergrade of sorts that is also displaying an incomplete black throat ring from the nelsoni influence. This is one of those individuals that is real tough to put your finger on with certainty.

See, the throat ring says nelsoni, and the rest looks very intermediate actually.

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

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Thanks Doug, appreciate your keen eye. I know most of the sinaloan and nelsoni have some degree of influence from one another. As long as it doesn't have any pueblan, cornduran, or anthing else in the mix, LOL. Steve

You're welcome buddy!

Yeah, at least there's no "cornduran" going on there..LOL!

It's overall characteristics looking at it from above are really sort of more sinaloan-ish..LOL! You would see that labeled a Sinaloan more often than not.

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

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Interesting enough, it was labeled a sinaloan, so I guess I'll go with sinaloan for naming purposes. He's just a pet, no breeding plans. The only milks I have an plans for breeding are my annulata. Steve

Yeah, I would simply roll with Sinaloan too.

Good luck with the annulata BTW. Post some pics of those for us whenever you can too man!

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

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com