Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here is a reverse trio of sweet scarlets from Carteret county that my friend Michael Coone and I are working with. Michael found these beauties. I love the variability from this locale.

Female

Male #1

This guy is a screamer and shows a lot of resmblence to his ssp cousins in counties slightly north of Carteret, don't you think?

Male #2

This guy is incredible and sits in your hand and chills.

DNS Reptiles

Wow those are great.Scarlets maybe the prettiest snake in the US

If only they were a bit bigger
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"He's down in the basement staring at his snakes " My Wife

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Doug L

beautiful animals! The scarlets from that area are very interesting and there are some with slight "temporalis"ish" characteristics. Most look elapsoides but every now and then one pops up like the male you have pictured. They remind me alot of animals from a little further north in Pamlico Co.

Brad, how about teasing us some more with the Curritucks! NC temps with patternless red heads will always be my favorites!

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That clean one has an AMAZING head! Red past the eyes! WOW.

Awesome assortment of Scarlet's there Dave!

Gosh, I really loved the rare one's that just sat in your hand and chilled too!

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

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Seeing photos from your collection is always a pleasure! Cool stuff, man.

Saw Dell's new syspila about a month ago... Eye-popping.

-Cole

Thanks Cole. Glad you liked that syspila too.

Dave
DNS Reptiles

Less than one out of five from that locale have that "temporalis" influenced look to them. The snakes above are the result of finding around 25 elapsoides over multiple trips to the area each year during a four year period of time. The above snakes were selected based on appearance and how easy they were to start on unscented rodents. The majority of snakes were released in the field, a few were collected based on "temporalis" appearance and given to friends, but the ones in the photos above were the best of the best from that locale.

Below are a few photos of other elapsoides from the area just to show how diverse they are. It took me longer to figure out how to take good photos than it did to figure out how to find elapsoides consistently...

Thanks,
Michael

nm

Really excited to work with an experienced milk snake breeder with this locale. I knew I was onto something special when I saw the first one in 2007. When I first saw the first one from this locale, I thought it was a scarlet snake because the belly was so white!

The female that Dave posted above had 3 viable eggs last year. Below is a photo of a hatchling (note the blotches at the front of the body instead of bands).

The other photo is one of the first elapsoides I found in the area.

Please overlook my photography skills...not as good as Dave's.

Thanks,
Michael

Hey westernNC I'm from Asheville where are you?

one out of five that intrigues me! I've found several there that have the southeastern temporalis look and it does appear to be a quarter or so of that population as well as poulations north in Pamlico,Beaufort and Hyde Co's.

Awesome field pics Michael! Thanks for sharing those. Looking forward to getting out there someday soon.

Dave
DNS Reptiles

thanks for sharing. Field pics are always great!

Thanks guys! I have noticed that the only way to get them to sit still for pics is to put them on a tree. Try to get pics on the ground and they scramble all over the place.

People should also keep in mind that I found these guys while working a job that sent me to that county for one week each month for three years. For every trip that I found a scarlet king, there were five trips when I did not. Also, I found one...right ONE...in the first 18 months on that job making monthly trips tot that area. Don't want to give the impression that these guys are easy or that it is likely that someone will just roll down to coastal NC and start flipping trash and driving wet roads at night and end up with 25 elapsoides in a weekend. I wish it was that easy, but it's not. Takes a hundred field hours to figure out microhabitat, weather conditions, time of year, and the right kind of A/C to set up.

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Nice looking snakes Dave!

I really like that high white one...outstanding!

-Rusty