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I came across these very unusual photos of sopossed intergrades from the Blue Ridge/Piedmont area of extreme western South Carolina near the area where NC,SC and Ga meet.Maybe they need a new common name,this area is definatly not the mid-atlantic coastal plain,lol.

J.D.
Milksnake intergrade pics

different animal
milksnake intergrade2

I like the first one better.,but bothare cool.

Pure eastern milks are found as far south as GA.Those animals look to have more RED milk influence onto the eastern than anything.COLOR is not the standard,but head shape,pattern and banding.I have seen animals like this from TN(reds)and the mountains overlap w.carolinas,TN and N.Alabama.

>>Pure eastern milks are found as far south as GA.Those animals look to have more RED milk influence onto the eastern than anything.COLOR is not the standard,but head shape,pattern and banding.I have seen animals like this from TN(reds)and the mountains overlap w.carolinas,TN and N.Alabama.
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Those are indeed interesting looking animals. Thanks for sharing the link. The second of the two looks very similar to two of the three Calvert County MD animals in my collection. It has a complete collar, a reduced lateral pattern and the same maroon blotch color. IMHO however that does not necessarily make it an integrade. Even less it does not make it temporalis. The school of thought that temporalis is a triangulum X elapsiodis integrade is being pretty soundly debunked.

Given geography, the color of the fist specimen and the collar on the second I would tend to speculate that there is some relic influence from integration with the red milk however, eastern milk snake populations with many "red" individuals exist elsewhere and this may just be another of them.

There seems to be too many people here too eager to validate ssp level based on color and locale.I think it more valid to incorperate SOME kind of standard and I do understand that many would not cooperate with a color system due to influence on grading(because most others favor RED snakes).Variation among milks within locales is huge.I have seen from St.Marys co,MD alone reds like that of tyrell,NC;maroon like that of most Calvert,co.MD specimens,orange like NJ animals and even a near black variation where the maroon becomes so dark that from 5'away the snake looks bi-colored.I bred two of these bicoloreds together years ago only to get ALL "normal"babies.I do think that environmental factors(to a degree)influence color.Another example of this would be the RED Eastern milk from Cecil,co MD that so many concluded as a "coastal"on color and locale alone(even though it has the exact head shape and pattern of a typical eastern).Maybe we can agree on some other standards to measure(distance between eyes,eye to snout,length and width of the head).I think we should if to do nothing more than objectify the findings of the guys studying the DNA samples in this field.I would really like to have 2 opinions of this before we get handed a validation of ssp by geneticists alone.Other opinions........Jeff

Jeff my problem with the color scale is that you'd apply it to captive produced animals too. IMHO this particular factor of phenotype is too easily manipulated which would render any relevance to wild populations meaningless. I agree that letting geneticists hand down sup-specific classifications is a bit disconcerting and I'm not sure if I buy into all the findings that are coming to light but contrasting these findings to a subjective data set doesn't seem to solve anything in my mind.

If I were to be interested in some such scheme I'd more likely follow pattern variations as I don't think these are as widely "bred for" or against. Again going back to coastals I could easily go alone with the idea of three distinctive regional "types" of temporalis based on pattern. Keeping in mind that I'm pulling these figures out of the air this would roughly follow:

Type I
Local: ground zero for coastals
Example: southern MD
Triad count = X
Lateral expansion of triads = .5
Presents of alternates = 25%

Type III
Local: southern MD
Example: Albemarle Peninsula
Triad count = .7X
Lateral expansion of triads = 1
Presents of alternates = near 0%

I would think that such a scale would more closely represent the spectrum of geographic phenotypes. Keep in mind that such a scale would not be totally conclusive. Historic gene flow would account for the presence of individuals within a given geographic area that are more typical of an ADJACENT area. This would follow your observations that St. May's coastals (southern MD) showed a wide range of phenotypic expression as Type I is adjacent to both other types, however, it would be rare to fine a Type III phenotype in the Jersey Pine Barrens and visa versa.

Not only would such a scale work for the classification of wild populations, but it would provide a framework for the captive production of geographic "types" without the problems of inbreeding depression locality breeding of rare snakes entails. By this I mean that genes from a Type I animal with Type II or III phenotypes could be migrated into those respective groups. This would not compromise the integrity (ability to breed true) of any group and would preserve heterozygousity in captive populations. It would also more accurately reflect the realities of nature be the elimination of the nearly complete barriers to gene flow between populations and sub specifics that locality breeding mandates.

but here is the scale

Type I
Local: ground zero for coastals
Example: southern MD
Triad count = X
Lateral expansion of triads = .5
Presents of alternates = 25%

Type III
Local: southern populations
Example: Albemarle Peninsula
Triad count = .7X
Lateral expansion of triads = 1
Presents of alternates = near 0%

Tony,I dont know what happened either but only your "typeI"and "type III"were there to see.But that said,while I do agree that the most accurate description of these snakes would be best represented by a formula similar to that "QUARTERBACK RATING",there are still obvious differences that the trained eye can see....the challenge is to quantify this trained eye-making myself and others superfluous.
Another thing that should also be discussed is the degree of variation.....its not just because of the numbers of animals seen from St.Marys co,MD but that it is the MOTHERLOAD of variation.Like genetic flow in humans from AFRICA,where the widest amount of variation occurs is more likely the origin rather than the confluence.I really hope THIS is pointed out by the geneticists,Jeff

Lets try Tpye II again:

Type II
Local: northern pops
Example: Jersey Pine Barrens
Triad count = 1.3X
Lateral expansion of triads = .25
Presents of alternates = >25%

I'd really like to know what happened because it did so twice. Weird!

I have a shed from the second animal (the more brown one) and will let you all know what the genetics can tell us (which may not be much). Apparently the reddish snake escaped a while ago so I wasn't able to get a shed from it.

Both were on display at a nature center in SC (until the red escaped that is). They look like some of your Calvert County animals, Tony? I didn't think they closely resembled any of the animals I've seen on the coastal plain.

George Harper

Key word is similar George. With my Calverts the alternates are not nearly so consistant and the blotches do tend more towards banding but outside of that the color is pretty much right on but then I'm going from a picture and memory as the two original Calverts are no longer in my collection. The remaining normal phenotype Calvert is a hypo het and thought blotch color is similar has expanded ground color which is much cleaner. Not sure if thats a function of selective breeding, being hypo het or just standard variation.

That said I'd like to know what happened to my post on regeonal types! Type II doesn't seem to want to post? Beats me!

Tony,99%of the coastals available are from these 3-4 locales...which you attempt to "type".The problem with doing something like that is that any other locales CANT FIT.There are plenty of other locales with plenty of other "types"in the wild that will eventually make it into captive breeding regimes(E.shore and Cecil co.for examples).I think the most that can come out of the DNA work is to hope to identify the area(s)of origin so that genetic distance and radiation on a time-line can try and systematically infer %'s of accepted ssp.s in individuals.Double checking genetic distance with controlled studies crossing known locales could validate the data.If you or anyone else is breeding ACROSS locales it would make these cb animals'sequences the litmus test for any of George's findings!The key here is to have KNOWN locales to begin with,so locale breeders and non-locale breeders alike could contribute significance.....I am still VERY interested in what George has to say about my time-line theory using those rare locale easterns....Get to work George! LOL,Jeff

No doubt that other locals will be forthcoming however I think that they will fall into the three types as they are basically derived from Connent's work. That being said, typing by broud geographic area does not preclude line breeding alone stricter locality lines if one so chooses. What I proposed was a framework for outbreeding that respects locality based variation. As for genetic testing I'm not sure we are going to see the level of detail you describe. Then again I could be wrong.

They look like syspila, even more so than other temporalis, I think that they will find that temporalis and syspila are very very related, or the same, I think the range of syspila once stretched all the way to the eastern coast and then triangulum (the bigger more dominant animal) took over, over the years and left an Island of syspila, where temporalis are today.
But I don't know.

Brandon DeCavele

Thats interesting because I had a very similar theory to yours.
J.D.