Reptile & Amphibian Forums

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1.0.0 albino okeetee corn
0.1.0 red tail boa
0.1.0 sinoalon milk snake
0.0.1 green snake
0.0.1 green igauna

Where was it caught? Looks like a mokasen "northern".

Chad

in eastern North carolinia, the feild guid said we have southerns and notherns.
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1.0.0 albino okeetee corn
0.1.0 red tail boa
0.1.0 sinoalon milk snake
0.0.1 green snake
0.0.1 green igauna

Pic is a little dark, but it looks like a northern.

Chad

North Carolina is a very difficult state for contortrix identification. The whole state is made up primarily of intergrades though some littiture suggest that pure mokasen can be found in the Smokeies and pure contortrix can be found in the southeastern parts of the state. My personal opinion is that the whole contortrix group needs to be looked at on the molecular level and will most likely have fewer or no sub species (and maybe even a new sp named. There have been talks of placeing pictagaster as its own sp). Pirtuiculary when you are speaking of mokasen, contortrix and pheogaster. Just my opinion and nothing more.

Anyhow, I have herped in eastern north carolina and many of the coppers look similar to yours. I have noticed that they are much larger in that area, more typical of contortrix but at this point all you can really call it is an intergrade.

Hope this helps some.

Later,
Jeremy

It is hard to tell from the pic. because you can't really see the body & patterning very well. I was going to say Southern but because of the locality it is prob. an intergrade of both S & N. Being from OH where we are required to have any animals w/ Northern bloodline in them micro-chipped & logged into our records, we call any Coppers w/ spots in the lighter part of the pattern intergrades to be on the safe side.