Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am licensed by the State of Georgia and present educational/conservation programs on native snakes in some of our state parks, etc. I present programs mainly to young school children and permit them to touch the snakes and sometimes handle them under my supervision. I would like to obtain a young northern or southern pine for my collection. I would appreciate a comparison between the two subspecies such as,relative size, agressiveness or lack thereof, habitat type/size and any other pro/con characteristic(s)between the two. I recognize this is somewhat dependent on the individual snake but general differences would help me in making a decision as to which type snake to obtain. All things about equal. I'm leaning towards getting a Northern Pine which occurs in the northern part of Georgia where we present our programs. Thanks much.

The Florida Pine tends to be more aggressive than the Northern, but if you are going to do progams for children in a state where both occur you need to have an example of each. Also, Pines have a tendency to be quite variable throughout the range; can you get Georgia specimens? The Northerns I've seen from that state tend to be yellow whereas Florida Pines are pretty much typical; I just examined a specimen from near Harlem the other day and it looked and counted like the many I've examined form Florida. Hope this helps.

Bart Bruno