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We found this one yesterday an awesome looking female. This is the first one I have seen here in the Mid West Back home in PA we had Northerns but they were alot darker. Thannks

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Jason & Danica
Well, I'm off my rocker, I fell out of my tree, I've been standin' on shaky ground, There's no helping me, yeah, I can't remember my number, I can't remember your name
I can't remember all the trouble I'm in, child....... Well, I'm insane(Ratt, Im Insane)
Classic Dums frozen feeders

In the interior highlands in MO you'll have phaeogaster X contortrix integrades, with pure phaeogaster in the northern part of the state and more or less pure contortrix in the boot heel area of the state. If I recall correctly you might have some mokasen influence in the extreme northeast areas of the state, but it should be more or less limited.

When it comes to copperheads, the ventral patterning and how it interacts with the dorsal patterning is much more helpful for subspecies identification than just the dorsal patterning.

>>When it comes to copperheads, the ventral patterning and how it interacts with the dorsal patterning is much more helpful for subspecies identification than just the dorsal patterning.
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Jason & Danica
Well, I'm off my rocker, I fell out of my tree, I've been standin' on shaky ground, There's no helping me, yeah, I can't remember my number, I can't remember your name
I can't remember all the trouble I'm in, child....... Well, I'm insane(Ratt, Im Insane)
Classic Dums frozen feeders

Actually the Osage is by far the most common occuring all over the entire state, it is replaced by the Southern in the lower counties adjacent to Arkansas where all 3 can be found Osage, Southern and Intergrades (as a matter of fact, we found one of each in Barry County this past weekend within 500 yards of one another about 20 miles from Arkansas)
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Bawaa Herps
www.BawaaHerps.com
sales@bawaaherps.com
"Conservation through Captive Propagation"

If you find one of each (one of one subspecies, one of the other, and an integrade) you are not actually finding all 3. You are simply in a zone of integradation, and all animals found within that zone are integrades regardless of phenotypic appearance.

In a zone of integradation animals can key out phenotypically as one subspecies, as the other, or as a blend of the two (or however many subspecies are integrading in the area), but in all actuality they are all integrades within that area, even if they don't phenotypically show it.

BTW, I love herping NW AR/ SW MO, and like you said you can find the animals that are phenotypically one way or the other in the same areas there, but they are all actually integrades, not one subspecies or the other.

Do you know if anyone has done any DNA work to prove out that theroy? As it makes since, there must also be a zone where both sub-species occur in their pure form. I know that Tom Johnson (former state herpetologist) shows the intergrade zone shaded in the R&A of Missouri, and it actually begins in the west in Barry County.
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Bawaa Herps
www.BawaaHerps.com
sales@bawaaherps.com
"Conservation through Captive Propagation"

It isn't a theory... it is part of the definition of integradation.