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They say that all lampropeltinine snakes crossed into the americas from the bering land bridge during a temperate period some 16-22 million years ago. This includes pituophis. Since there are old world "rat snakes" and even candidates for old world lampropeltis (Coronella) I'm going to pick your brain and ask what old world snakes resemble our pituophis and might they be related? I'll start with a couple:

King "rat snake"

Ladder "rat snake"

Diadem "rat snake"

I've worked with the later two of these snakes and they remind me allot of pituophis so I thought I'd share my curiosity.

I always thought the African Molesnake was very close but mainly just their heads and habits, they lack pattern and keeled scales...

Good call, didn't think about the mole snake.

"They say that all lampropeltinine snakes crossed into the americas from the bering land bridge during a temperate period some 16-22 million years ago"

Where did you get this? Did that bridge even exist 16 mya? I dont have time to investigate this, but the version of this prehistory that I read, and cant recall when and where I read it, was that ancestral lampropeltinines existed in Laurasia (the supercontinent consisting of NA and Europe and Asia). I believe that when NA and Europe separated, the split line was along eastern NA and western Europe, so there could not have been a Bering Strait at that time (I have no idea how many mya that was, but it was probably more than 22 mya. That long ago, its unlikely that whatever the ancestral Lampropeltinines were, they probably were different species, if not genera that exist today, and may have not even resembled anything existing forms today.
What ever the forms were that existed at that time, they probably did not include Lampropeltis and Pituophis. It's my understanding that some form of NA ratsnake was ancestral to Pits and Kings and this occurred after the continents separated so I would suspect that there cannot be any Pits or King relatives in Europe or Asia. Any resemblance of european or asian Lampropeltines to NA pits and kings is probably due to convergent evolution to similar niches. With all of the molecular genetics studies that have occurred recently that resulted in the taxonomic revisions of numerous general and species complexes, I would assume if there were genetic relationships between NA Pits and Kings to any European and Asian form, it will eventually be proven in the Laboratory. That is just off of the top of my head.

This includes pituophis. Since there are old world "rat snakes" and even candidates for old world lampropeltis (Coronella) I'm going to pick your brain and ask what old world snakes resemble our pituophis and might they be related? I'll start with a couple:

I may have misquoted because I read this a long time ago but I think I read it here:

http://163.238.8.180/~fburbrink/Research/Publications/worldratsnakes.pdf

It appears that you were correct. I didnt realize there were both Pacific and Atlantic land bridges during that period of time, but the author states that the Atlantic bridge was too cold. That paper was excellent and it seems that Pituophis and Lampropeltis probably have no OW relatives since they are only ~15 myo and the EP became too cold during that period. At least thats what I got out of the paper.

Is there any reason to think the Pituophis have such a close, old world relative?

Looking the other direction, what about other American groups? Has there been any convincing work showing how Pituophis relates to Arizona, Pantherophis, Bogertophis, Lampropeltis, Rhynocheilus, etc.?

Best I could find is this 2002 paper by Utiger, Helfenberger, Schätti, Schmidt, Ruf, and Ziswiler (PDF) suggesting relationships based on two mitochondrial genes.

Common ancestry with old world snakes is my belief.

Black rat x beauty snake

Corn snake x japanese rat:

And of course NW x NW hybrids

Cal-King x pacific gopher:

Corn snake x pituophis:

Finding the closest pituophis exemplars existing in the old world is my goal.

Great Pics! Are those your animals, and how big did the Black Rat/Beauty crosses eventually get?

"Common ancestry with old world snakes is my belief."

Everyone else seems to think that too

Since there aren't any "old world Pituophis" - their closest relatives are the same closest relatives to all the other North American lampropeltinine snakes (ratsnakes, lampropeltis, etc.)

See Figures 4, 5 in the PDF I'd linked to above.

WOW! What an interesting topic! That ladder rat snake looks a lot like a great basin. I realize the differences are major but like I said an interesting topic.

Yes, but this is a picture of a juvenile laddersnake. Adult they look totaly different.
Anyhow, very nice snakes with a lot of character.

Thank you I knew this would spark some conversation/debate!

They resemble (and act) like Pituophis more than some members of the genus! I'm raising a pair with ancestry to Spain; they have a rostral like a Bull or Pine and a cartilaginous filament at the base of the glottis (sound familiar?), though not as large. They are also irritable like many Pituophis; their attitude resembles that of the many Florida Pine Snakes I have worked with over the years, and I often refer to them as "mugitus Europa".

Bart Bruno

I am raising a pair of ladder rats as well.

We will have to trick em into breeding with a gopher snake to prove it to everyone

"We will have to trick em into breeding with a gopher snake to prove it to everyone"

So what exactly would you be "proving"? Given that there have been numerous Pituophis X Elaphe offspring produced, seems likely that it'll work?

It would be more interesting to pair a pit with a non-Elaphe species, right?

Pituophis lineaticollis lineaticolis x Stilosoma extenuatum would be impressive haha.

I thinnk DNA studies is a better idea; too many mutts floating around as it is.

Bart

Agreed.

I've always thought Elaphe vulpina resemble pits in some ways.

They're closer than you think.

Bart