Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My friend caught this three foot long snake on the road one night near his home in N. Texas. To me it appears to be a natural hybrid.

Any ideas???

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Sort of looks like a spotted phase Prairie King Snake.

I do believe Old Herper has nailed another one. It certainly looks like L. calligaster with a pattern anomaly.

~~Greg~~

Neat animal Don! Its definantly got calligaster in it, Could be just a mutation (what, i have no idea) of a Prairie but I am thinking it is similar to what a triangulum x calligaster hybrid would look like. What triangulum is found there? Gentilis? There is something about the head morphology that dosen't look pure calligaster to me.....

Thanks for posting it.

Horridus

I'm looking at this and what I see is a prairie king that has some bullsnake characteristics in its pattern. There are hybrids in nature between prairies and emorys rat. But I have never seen a natural Bull/prairie cross. What bothers me is that the head pattern and side blotches are just not right for a king...I have to wonder if this is an escaped captive.
Frank

I thought the same thing you did. Sayi/calligaster. That is the only thing that seems logical to me, but the head sure is messed up. The white on the tail is giving me trouble...pied? Is it an escapee...a hoax (not implying anything about Don, but maybe someone gave it to him as one)? Andy
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Andy Maddox
Houston Herp Key
The Reptizone

Burgundy baby, With your blue eyed soul, You play the hits and I'm on that roll, Capricorn sister, Freddie Mercury, Jupiter Child cry

I've seen some spotted phase calligaster that looked like that (except for the white splotches). The thing that throws me a little is not so much the markings and blotches, like I said, I've seen that before from some Texas spotted phase. It's the light scales outlining the blotches. Normally in calligaster, the blotches are black outlined. I'm wondering if this is some degree of leucisism.

if you look at the nose there is definitly some form of pied(?)albinism (?) going on. Face it, that beast is weird.
Frank

I agree, I too thought there was some bull snake influence or possibly even glossy.

Eric

Astute observations by all of you. If you saw where this was caught, you'd rule out captive escapee though I'm not naive about that possibliity. If you knew the guy that caught it, you'd rule out any kind of fraud. The place where this was caught is out in the middle of nowhere relative to human habitation.

The guy that caught it wondered if we're seeing glossy snake in the face. The pied features I believe are something Mother Nature put in this animal to complicate our guesses. Surely that is coincidental to and/or a result of the 'obvious' hybrid nature of this beauty.

I'm not sure we'll ever know. Maybe with that DNA home testing kit we'll all have in another 20 years, we won't be stymied by these natural puzzles anymore. 'Till then, I think this one's going to remain a mystery.

Any other guesses and/or observations will be welcomed. These pictures were taken in 2002 when it was caught. If I get some fresh shots of it at new angles, I'll post again. I just stumbled onto these images when I was cleaning house (hard drive) and thought I'd ask you folks.

Thanks again,

Don
www.cornsnake.NET
South Mountain Reptiles

Glossy Snakes have plain white venters.

Funny you should mention glossies...I had a kansas glossy that was pied and brindle. I started a breeding project on it but ended up giving it to Doug Beard. That snake is no way a glossy. The snout is too short and the lower jaw of the glossy is strongly over hung by the rostral like in longnose snakes. would love to see more pics....Frank

I work at the City of Las CRuces Museum of Natural History and as a result I have the pleasure of caring for a glossy, among the few other snakes we have on display. Now granted the rest of the head features don't appear to be glossy, but those eyes just scream glossy to me.

I'm not one for hybrids, but a good example to view would be the corn X cal kings. Most of the ones I've seen in person, and even in photos, appear to have a more king-like head structure to them than the guttata head. Seems to me this is the case with the questionable snake. So my guess is glossy X prairie king; might explain the white scale outlining as well??! Unfortunately I don't have a glossy right here in front of me to pick over and compare with, nor a prairie king for that matter.

Chris

If it were some sort of hybrid (which is possible, but I don't see any really good reason to think is the case), I wouldn't rule out glossies in its ancestry somewhere, but I've been keeping glossies from Texas for the last nine years, and this isn't one of them. I'm with oldherper--just looks like calligaster with some severe pattern anomalies to me...

Patrick Alexander

Here are some Painted Desert Glossy pics from Northern Arizona. Not sure on the comparison, glossies have a solid pearl white belly. The red speckles in the scales are similar.... the eyes are different.... not sure about glossy influence???

Also, how big is the snake? How about scale counts?

Kerby...

Kerby...

I don't see any glossy/bullsnake in it.

If I really had to make it some sort of natural hybrid, it really looks like a calligaster hybridizing with a Coluber! I doubt that is possible, but that is my gut instinct based on its appearance.
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Chris Harrison

...he was beginning to realize he was the creature of a god that appreciated the discomfort of his worshippers - W. Somerset Maugham

I dunno man, it's weird.

Could the white tail be a result of a bad shed that left some old skin on it and then effected the colour?

Fox snakes do not even occur in Texas. As for the white marks, it couldn't be from a shed. It is probably some sort of piebaldism or something of that sort. Andy
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Andy Maddox
Houston Herp Key
The Reptizone

Burgundy baby, With your blue eyed soul, You play the hits and I'm on that roll, Capricorn sister, Freddie Mercury, Jupiter Child cry