Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've started making clay figurines of snakes. Right now all I've done are cornsnakes, but I would like to do some milksnakes too, but I don't have any milksnakes so I don't know what their bellies look like.

Could someone describe or post a photo of the belly of a normal colored milksnake? An albino would be interesting too, but I'm especially interested in the normal coloration.

I'm curious if the rings go all the way around or if the bellies are white, black, red, checkered, what?

Thanks.

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alstiver@hotmail.com

Current snakes:
1.0 2001 Hypo snow cornsnake
0.1 2002 Pastel Ghost cornsnake
1.1 2002 Bloodred cornsnakes
To be added when it gets warmer:
0.1 1998 Het Hypo, Het Caramel cornsnake
1.0 2000 Hypo Het Caramel cornsnake

Amanda, L. triangulum, all have some degree of difference of belly scale pattern. Many look VARY similar, though some can be quite different. Exampls- Louisiana Milksnakes and Scarlet Kingsnakes can look much alike on the underside, as can Red Milksnakes and Eastern Milksnakes. I would be willing to bet that no two snakes have the scale exact scale pattern. Here is an example of an L. t. syspila having a belly pattern a little different than Th more common pattern. This is not an aberrant, but would just be referred to as having a clean pattern. This is the cleanest belly pattern of a Red Milksnake I have ever seen. All other have ranged from having a minimal amount of speckling and blotches to being almost completely dark. This one is just an extreme example of limited speckling. I’ll try to take some pics of my Scarlet kingsmakes underside as. Would you be interested in pics of other species of snake’s underside patterns as well? Let me know-Brett

generally, eastern and red milks have checkered bellies. Most other N. American species have bands that go at least partially around the belly. Mexican Milksnakes often have solid black bellies.
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Chris Harrison

I have seen Easterns milk snakes with the classic checkerboard pattern, but have also seen a few with no checkers what so ever just a plain white belly
Wayne