Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is in reguards to the posts below on the same topic. I was at Daytona today (great show...Got a beautiful baby Persian rat).

Any how... I bought a book On the reptiles of the Northwest USA. Inside they listed an Emory's ratsnake as a Corn Snake. As there was some dispute over my listing all Panthrophis gutata as such, I submit this as proof my point that common names cannot be relied upon. if anyone wants the name of this book I will list it tommorow (I'm exhausted...)

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

You didn't get the point. Corn Snakes and Emory's Rat Snake are both subspecies of P.guattata. P.g.emori has mainly two common names: the Great Plains Rat Snake and Emory's Rat Snake. P.g.guattata also has mainly two common names: the Corn Snake and the Red Rat Snake. Since Corn Snake is the common name for P.g.guattata, and not for P.g.emori, it is a little misleading to call the two snakes by the same name.

I am sure that someone out there calls P.g.emori a Western Corn Snake, but mostly people do not.

Common names are misleading and change with locality. That is why they are unreliable. That is why a blanket name of "Corn Snake" or Rat Snake does not work, because someone elsewhere uses the same name you use to describe a completely different animal.

I do not argue that Emory's is known as a Prarrie Ratsnake over the majority of it's range...that was a given and not my point. my example was to point out that this is not a universaly used common name and that some people do call them Corn Snakes.

Latin names are internationally respected and thus are more uniform and reliable...That is my point.

Another classic example multiple snakes under a single common name is the use of "Chicken Snake" to describe both Pantherophis obsoleta and Spilotes pullatus (which is also known as a "Cribo" which is a name used commonly to describe Central American Indigos). Or how about Brown Snake? Do you prefer the American...or the Australian?

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I do get your point. Common names can lead to confusion. Those of us who like these snakes and buy, sell or trade them do not want to be mislead or misleading. If you told me you wanted to trade me a corn snake for a black rat snake sight unseen, and you sent me an Emori, I would feel like you were pulling a fast one on me. That is not what I would expect if I were thinking "Corn Snake."

The point is to use the best name that you can to describe the snake that you have. I think that using both the common and scientific names is the way to go, but that is just me.

One last note, Western scientific names generaly come from both Latin and Greek. In the case of P. g. emori, the last part was just an attempt to "Latinize" an English name. I am sure that you knew that but some of the readers of this forum may not.

yes alot of "Latin" names are creations. Like Pantherophis o. rossalleni for example.(named for Ross Allen obviously).

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."