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After reading that whole long thread on Northern water snakes I was curious. Can someone tell / show me the difference in Northerns and Midlands and where they're found? Is there a nice little easy -to- understand watersnake picture book out there?

My little broadbandeds are doing great. They're eating fish and getting vitamins right now. That may change soon though, I'd like them to have more variety. One has a really great temperment. I can pick it up no problem and he could sit still for hours. The other tolerates it well enough but is much happier to be left alone. He's got some pretty red to him.

I got to see a wild mudsnake a few weeks back. Of course with no camera around. I couldn't be that lucky. Pretty amazing considering the most I normally see is the broadbandeds and garter snakes.

Nikki

Pure Northern Watersnakes (Nerodia sipedon sipedon) are found from southern Canada, through all of New England south to VA, west through all of the Great Lake states, and all the way to NE CO.

Their is a massive area of intergradation between the Northern and the Midland Watersnake (Nerodia sipedon pleuralis) which encompasses most of NC, the western halves of TN and KY, the southern halves of IN and IL, pretty much all of MO and AR, and the western portions of KS and OK.

The Midland Watersnake, in its pure form, is found in north FL, GA, AL, MS, southeast LA, most of TN, western KY, southern IN and IL, and western MO and AR.

Nerodia sipedon pleuralis from central GA

The main destinguishing trait between the two subspecies has to do with the blotching pattern on their sides. Midland Watersnakes have light interspaces that are wider than the blotches themselves whereas they are of equivalent sizes or narrower in the Northern Watersnake. Midland Watersnakes have a lower overall blotch count (less than 30) and a more reddish background color. Northern Watersnakes are more black and grey in color and have greater than 30 blotches.

Because these subspecies are rather poorly defined and intergrade over such an extensive area, it is often a futile effort to try and assign many idividuals to one subspecies or another.

Here is a web page with a typical Northern Watersnake for comparison:
Northern Watersnake
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Pierson Hill

Herpetology and Herpetoculture