Reptile & Amphibian Forums

a friend of mine bought this coastal plains milksnake from the local pet store. I'm pretty sure it isn't a coastal I'm leaning towards central plains any ideas?
thanks wayne

That's not a milksnake at all. It's a Nuevo Leon kingsnake(L.m.thayeri).

That particular phenotype(look) is known as the MSF (milk snake phase) because of the ring pattern.

Glad the tail chop happened AFTER the cloaca!...poor little guy..LOL!

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

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

I am not a hardcore milkhead, but that think looks like it has some type of mexicana in it for sure. Thayeri, mexmex, etc. I dont think its a milk, or a pure milk.

WHEN HAVE YOUSE EVER SEEN A "COASTAL PLAINS " MILKESNAKE FOR SALE IN A LOCAL PETSTORE?????......that ain't no temporalis.....jeff.....tony....jcruz.....swit....no comments???....

Maybe a cross, but when i first saw it I was thinking straight Thayeri as well..

~ Mike Russo

It's just like a pet store ad I saw a while back that had a silly movie clip of a perfect textbook annulata specimen being sold as a freakin polyzona of all things..LOL!

The pet shop dude's had a video of this snake for sale, and on the counter in the background, you could plainly see an opened copy of Markel's "milksnakes and Kingsnakes" book. I am quite sure these know-nothings were thumbing through the book to see what they "thought" the snake best looked like to sell it as such...LOL!

And BOY!, where they grossly mistakin with the snake they came up with..LOL!!

Shannon saw this same video clip too, and we were both laughing our a$$ off about it. We both contacted the guys and told them just how wrong they were with their IDing skills too!..

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

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Yeah, that was wayyyyyyyyyyy funny.

HAHAHAA!!, yeah it was, it was comical as all heck!!

whoa!!, killer aberrant Hondo there bro!!

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

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

My Local Pet Store is still trying to sell an obvious Nelson's as a Pueblan! Even after i pointed out the numerous discrepancies in appearance they went with "Pueblan" because it was on an invoice! ROFLOL

Matthew

Why is it a petstore will look up the most expensive milk and say....YA, thats what it is?? All about the BENJAMINS. What you have there is a mexicana complex, likely a Thayeri but considering the lineage(lack there of)and the condition(lack there of)someone just did a STUPID thing by patronizing pet store morons. People, when you see stupidity DONT try and save the snake from it.....you only add to it.

Now keep in mind, thayeri are also known as "variable kings" for good reason, so there is plenty of room for variation as well. But this is the very same type of thayeri "milksnake phase" I had many years ago that is virtually identical to yours.

Note the very same strange temporal band head marking on both yours and mine here that is also very typical of this subspecies. Only yours is a little off to the side and not quite as symmetrical, but still very much there nonetheless.

~Doug

-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

thanks guys I'll let him know what it is.
wayne