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i asked this question on the corn snake page but here is it.

i just had 5 southern rat snakes (Starr County) and 4 Emorys rat snakes (Val Verde County) hatch in the past few weeks. The southern rat snakes have little to no ventral pattern at all, while the emorys rats have alot of ventral checkering. the emorys also do not have the typical point found in the center of guttata's heads. any ideas as to the diferences in these subspecies. i will try to post pictures later today or tomorrow.

>>i asked this question on the corn snake page but here is it.
>>
>>i just had 5 southern rat snakes (Starr County) and 4 Emorys rat snakes (Val Verde County) hatch in the past few weeks. The southern rat snakes have little to no ventral pattern at all, while the emorys rats have alot of ventral checkering. the emorys also do not have the typical point found in the center of guttata's heads. any ideas as to the diferences in these subspecies. i will try to post pictures later today or tomorrow.

According to Vaughan, et al, the differences bt. subspecies include number of blotches, number of ventrals and subcaudals, and ventral pigmentation. I also keep a few P. g. emoryi and a few P. g. meahllmorum..Brazos Island rats. The meahllmorum have very little ventral pigmentation, while the emoryi have a lot of it. That's not always the case, but it's fairly common.

That's funny, I was just talking to a friend of mine about this earlier today. According to him, the main differences are in the ventral pattern. The venter of the Great Plains (emoryi) is completely checkered, all the way to the chin. The Southwestern Rats (meahllmorum), on the other hand, have black freckles along their belly; however, the first 1/3 of the venter (from the chin back) is completely white. Learn something new everyday! Take care...