Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Knowing I collect and breed snakes, I was approached by a lady at work asking me if i wanted some Fox Snakes. She then proceeded to tell me about a farmer she knew who was remodeling his house (near the Perry and Franklin county border)and found 30 or 40 fox snakes of various sizes in the walls of his home. I was doubtful of them being fox snakes since they only occur in the northern half of the state, but was told that the man had ordered crates of used farm equipment for several years from up north.

This was a few months ago and they hadn't seen any until earlier this week. I went out there yesterday, with my doubts, figuring if anything they had seen a few prairie kingsnakes. I looked around but couldn't find anything. THEN they got out the pictures! All I could tell with certainty is that they were rat snakes (and alot of them!), but with an ORANGE ground color and black/dark brown blotches. I'm gonna try borrowing the pictures and posting them next week. Could they have been black/gray rat intergrades or just an odd-colored black rat variant? The farmer says the smell was just like that of a red fox and the pictures do bear somewhat of a resemblance to a western fox snake. Whatever they are I plan on obtaining some.

They remind me of the orange-phase texas rats.

Any ideas?

That sounds interesting. I dunno if a gray/black intergrade would produce those colors, but that's possible. If anything, maybe they are fox snakes already native to the area, maybe their range extends a little farther than originally thought? Or perhaps they were indeed western foxes transplanted from shipments up north and possibly intergraded with the local rats. Just a thought.

Bry

I'm not familiar with the color phases of the ratsnakes in your area, but many years ago I saw a crate full of black Ratsnakes from Indiana that match you description. Looking forward to seeing the photos.

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

This was a Rat I caight in Alabama. I later saw a couple others that showed strong orange undertones - as well as ones with more expected coloration. I think over the years they may have been a lot of mixing of Texas and Black Rats. Some folks even call this an AL Gray Rat but we won't get into that. There was DNA work done recently that showed that Blacks, Grays, Texas Rats between the Alleghenys and The Mississippi were essentially one gene pool.

Yes, they look similar to that one. There was some variation in the orange ground color but all of them, except the hatchling I seen, had it. I've caught MANY black rats, but all of the adults were almost, if not, solid black. Several of those in the pics I seen were over five feet long and still strongly patterned. But southern Illinois is well out the range of texas rats, and the Gray Rats are not orange.

I plan on going back later this week and searching for some live ones. Even if I can't find any, I'm going to ask to borrow the pictures to study them more.

I realize that the offical range of "Lindhi"s doesn't cover Illinois but it really doesn't cover central Alabama either. When I first posted that pic, several people thought it was an escaped pet. However, like I said, I later found more with that look and the local zoo keeper said he had seen several like that. I have also caught standard-looking Black Rats in the same area. Maybe the area of Lindhi "influence" is simply wider than official literature credits. I think these look like intergrades and I've now seen similar pictures from IL, AL, OK and MO.
The Grey Rat comment intrigued me too. It refers to an early description of Rats found in AL that called them Grey. Perhaps just because AL was known for Rat Snakes that were actually grey. I really don't know the details about that paper. (Anyone care to fill us in?) This is a local WC that I would call Grey.