Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The white oak color phase of the gray rat snake may well be my favorite obsoleta.

A Kentucky locality corn snake. I plan on taking some pics of my other rat snakes once I pull them out of winter cooling in a couple of weeks.

I hope my white oak will turn out to be a killer looking snake, and being from Dwight, Im sure he will be!!

That KY corn is sweet looking too! How big is that one?
Brian

>>A Kentucky locality corn snake. I plan on taking some pics of my other rat snakes once I pull them out of winter cooling in a couple of weeks.
>>
-----

RATS
1.0 Corn snake "Warpath" (KY locale)
1.0 Black rat snake "Havok" (KY locale)
1.1 Black rat snakes "Reaper and Mystique" (MO locale)
1.0 Albino Black rat snake "Malakai" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Everglades rat snake "Deadpool" (Dwight Good stock)
0.1 Greenish rat snake "Rogue" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Yellow rat snake "Wolverine" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Grey rat snake "Punisher" (White oak phase)(Dwight Good stock)

MILKS
0.0.1 Eastern Milk snake "Cable" (KY locale)
0.0.1 Eastern/Red milk intergrade "Omega Red" (KY locale)
Good luck and Happy Herping
Brian

Thanks Brian. She is a very girthy 3.5'. She should produce some outstanding little ones this year!

Beautiful Corn. Both you & Brian (Hotshot) have two outstanding looking Ky. corns, and both seem pretty stout.
Phil, are the Ky. corns limited to the two isolated areas listed in the commonwealth, or have you noticed a much greater range then what they are depicted? Thanks,

Steve

Thanks Steve. By all accounts and by my personal experience the corn snakes are limited in range in KY, but at least in the south central population in the cave region they are a fairly common species. There are numerous records from the north eastern part of the state but despite spending a good amount of time in that area I have yet to see a corn snake either alive or DOR. Here is a link to an article I wrote on corn snakes in KY. - Phil
Notes and observations on the Kentucky corn snake

Glad to see the population of corns in Ky. are much greater then once thought. Very interesting on their lower blotch count compared to their deeper south counterparts, as well as the influence that topography/soil conditions might have on their isolated range. Excellent reading. Well done Phil.

Steve

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed Steve

Nice healthy looking corn snake Phil. Do you know if that one is representative of the guttata in Kentucky? The obsoleta in Kentucky can be quite locale variable in Kentucky from what I've seen in pics on this forum. Thanks for sharing the pics.

Terry Parks

Thanks Terry. I would call that corn snake typical of the KY population though there is a fair degree of variation. Just like with corns in any area some will be dark and we have occasionally seen them with a charcoal wash. This is more the exception than the rule however and most are quite attractive. Blotching is normally red on a background of burnt orange to brown. One thing that is consistent is lower blotch counts than their counterparts from more southern locales. We have seen a varience of 25-34 with the average 31. This relict population has a tendency to be very stout for a corn snake and based on over 100 observed snakes in the field seem to max out at around 4.5' for adult males. - Phil

I know we talked about it before, but couldnt remember on the blotch count if you went to or just below the vent?? My corn has 31 just prior the vent, and 32 just past.
Brian

>>Thanks Terry. I would call that corn snake typical of the KY population though there is a fair degree of variation. Just like with corns in any area some will be dark and we have occasionally seen them with a charcoal wash. This is more the exception than the rule however and most are quite attractive. Blotching is normally red on a background of burnt orange to brown. One thing that is consistent is lower blotch counts than their counterparts from more southern locales. We have seen a varience of 25-34 with the average 31. This relict population has a tendency to be very stout for a corn snake and based on over 100 observed snakes in the field seem to max out at around 4.5' for adult males. - Phil
-----

RATS
1.0 Corn snake "Warpath" (KY locale)
1.0 Black rat snake "Havok" (KY locale)
1.1 Black rat snakes "Reaper and Mystique" (MO locale)
1.0 Albino Black rat snake "Malakai" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Everglades rat snake "Deadpool" (Dwight Good stock)
0.1 Greenish rat snake "Rogue" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Yellow rat snake "Wolverine" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Grey rat snake "Punisher" (White oak phase)(Dwight Good stock)

MILKS
0.0.1 Eastern Milk snake "Cable" (KY locale)
0.0.1 Eastern/Red milk intergrade "Omega Red" (KY locale)
Good luck and Happy Herping
Brian

Brian, we count from the first blotch past the nape to the vent. Past there we do not count since the occasional snake is missing part of its tail and would skew the results if we were to go to the tail tip. Stopping at the vent simplifies it.

Thanks for the great information in reponse to my question.

Terry Parks

>>Thanks Terry. I would call that corn snake typical of the KY population though there is a fair degree of variation. Just like with corns in any area some will be dark and we have occasionally seen them with a charcoal wash. This is more the exception than the rule however and most are quite attractive. Blotching is normally red on a background of burnt orange to brown. One thing that is consistent is lower blotch counts than their counterparts from more southern locales. We have seen a varience of 25-34 with the average 31. This relict population has a tendency to be very stout for a corn snake and based on over 100 observed snakes in the field seem to max out at around 4.5' for adult males. - Phil

Phil,

Congratulations on your articles, and Will's, at the KHS site. I wish I could spend some time with you guys and maybe get away for a trip to KY this summer. I really like the fact you are working with locality snakes and are researching natural history information for that region of the U.S.

It's very interesting that your corns have a lower blotch count and are somewhat chunkier than corns from further south. In pondering the causes of that a little bit, I'm remembering that after the last glacial there was an "interglacial optimum" period, about 7 - 8,000 yrs. ago, where conditions were more favorable and the range of corns was probably expanded in KY and possibly connected to the corns further south. Also, the range of Great Plains Ratsnakes would have been expanded, and possibly could have been connected to your relict pop. to the west. Your snakes might be an intergrade population, now isolated.

It reminds me of a locality I'm working with, the Brazos Island Ratsnake, which is a Pantherophis g. meahllmorum. They have a lower blotch count and are a little chunkier than most corns. ASAMOF, all the guttatus along the TX Gulf Coast have lower blotch counts, including P. g. slowinskii in East TX, which is more of a corn snake. The area bt. meahllmorum and slowinskii along the coast has been very little studied and I think we'll eventually find that these two subspecies are intergrading there.

Could the KY corns have intergrated with GPRs in the past? That's highly speculative, but I think genetic information might be pretty interesting from this group. Looking at the colors on your snakes, they look more like a corn, though. If they were much browner, you might think they were leaning towards GPRs, however. The really dark ones are interesting too. They might have a tendency towards melanism. I wonder if the dark coloration breeds true?

Hope you don't mind me speculating on your strand, Phil. I just thought it might give you a little fuel for imagining how things might have come about. Good luck working with them...great project.

TC

Thanks for the insights Terry! Working with isolated populations certainly does bring up all sorts of interesting possibilities. By talking with others I have found that the KY corns share a number of similarities with some other populations from the northeastern part of their range such as Maryland and Delaware. Your Brazo's Island project sounds interesting as well. I hope to track down some corn snakes from the eastern population in KY and see how they compare with the ones we are looking at. By all accounts the range does not appear to be contiguous with perhaps 140 miles separating the two. I wish more people found these sort of things interesting. Theres so much to be learned. - Phil

>>Thanks for the insights Terry! Working with isolated populations certainly does bring up all sorts of interesting possibilities. By talking with others I have found that the KY corns share a number of similarities with some other populations from the northeastern part of their range such as Maryland and Delaware. Your Brazo's Island project sounds interesting as well. I hope to track down some corn snakes from the eastern population in KY and see how they compare with the ones we are looking at. By all accounts the range does not appear to be contiguous with perhaps 140 miles separating the two. I wish more people found these sort of things interesting. Theres so much to be learned. - Phil

Hi, Phil.

After looking at your photos some more, I have to say they look an awful lot like a corn snake, P. g. guttatus. However, I did a little additional research today too.

My new "Amphibians and Reptiles of Arkansas", 2000, has their guttatus listed as Elaphe g. emoryi. They knew about Vaughan, et al, but chose to stick with the old taxonomy. "Texas Snakes", by Werler, and Dixon, 2004, however, went with the new classification, P. g. slowinskii. The TX corn is in the subspecies, slowinskii, as I mentioned before, and ranges up into Arkansas. The photos in the Arkansas book look just like TX slowinskii. They have the low number of blotches, around 33, and the two black stripes under the tail, just like corns. They also lay smallish clutches, etc. These corns range up into Missouri also, avoiding the West Gulf Coastal Plain, and only cross the Mississippi R. in sw. Illinois.

Although I said your snakes may have intergraded with emoryi in my earlier post, I should have said "slowinskii". Slowinski's corn is a corn snake, not a Great Plains Rat. It intergrades with true corns in se. Louisiana and may have intergraded with corns in the northern part of their range in the past. I'm not saying now that KY corns are intergrades, but just that the possibility exists. The reason for the variation from mainstream corns that you're seeing could be from the fact that it's such a northern climate/environment. The fact that they are isolated might mean they've evolved alone for some time, but I suspect the Eastern KY pop. will be very similar. Some samples from TN and AL could be very interesting too.

Phil, I think Vaughan, et. al. are working on a new paper (guttatus), and it would be cool if they included dna samples from your KY corns. You could do that with just a blood sample. If you want more info on them, let me know.

I think your work in KY is really interesting. I wish other herpers were more interested in these things too. Keep up the great pics, stories, etc.

TC

Terry, I am interested in hearing more about Vaughan's work. We have hunted down every bit of research that we could find relating to the corn snake complex and it would be interesting to see what some others are doing.

Will Bird and I have been collecting data on KY corns and Will is presently putting it together in the form of a scietific paper. We have meristical data, clutch size and all types of natural history observations (early emergence, last appearence for year, frequency of sightings by month etc..) We plan on submitting it for publication consideration this summer. - Phil

>>Terry, I am interested in hearing more about Vaughan's work. We have hunted down every bit of research that we could find relating to the corn snake complex and it would be interesting to see what some others are doing.
>>
>>Will Bird and I have been collecting data on KY corns and Will is presently putting it together in the form of a scietific paper. We have meristical data, clutch size and all types of natural history observations (early emergence, last appearence for year, frequency of sightings by month etc..) We plan on submitting it for publication consideration this summer. - Phil

Hi again, Phil.

In discussing corn snakes I generally refer to Vaughan et. al. I think that was the last major publication and revision of the group, although their Texas corns/Slowinski's corns, they referred to as Elaphe guttata guttata. Since then there has been a publication renaming the Texas and Lousiana corns of this group as a new species, Pantherophis (Elaphe) slowinskii. The new species hasn't been well accepted and most herpers think of them as a subspecies, i.e. P. g. slowinskii. This was based on a genetics study.

I looked over Vaughan's article again this morning and they looked at snakes from Missouri and Arkansas also. They suggest these are from the subspecies guttata (slowinskii). It looks like "slowinskii" had a much broader range in the past and all the isolated pops. were connected. I'm anxiously awaiting their new paper on this subject with updated info, probably including the change to the ssps slowinskii, and some info on the intergradation zones. Vaughan's original paper, 1996, "A reevaluation of Populations of the Corn Snake 'Elaphe guttata' (Reptilia: Serpentes: Colubridae) in Texas," by R. Kathryn Vaughan, James R. Dixon and Robert A. Thomas, was published in Texas J. Sci. 48(3):175-190.

I would love to have a copy of your paper this summer. I'll email you some more details later. Continued good luck with your project.

Cheers....TC

>>My new "Amphibians and Reptiles of Arkansas", 2000, has their guttatus listed as Elaphe g. emoryi. They knew about Vaughan, et al, but chose to stick with the old taxonomy. "Texas Snakes", by Werler, and Dixon, 2004, however, went with the new classification, P. g. slowinskii. The TX corn is in the subspecies, slowinskii, as I mentioned before, and ranges up into Arkansas. The photos in the Arkansas book look just like TX slowinskii. They have the low number of blotches, around 33, and the two black stripes under the tail, just like corns. They also lay smallish clutches, etc. These corns range up into Missouri also, avoiding the West Gulf Coastal Plain, and only cross the Mississippi R. in sw. Illinois.
>>

"Amphibians and Reptiles of Arkansas", is the newer book, 2004. "Texas Snakes" has a 2000 copywright. Also, Werler and Dixon called their TX corns, Elaphe g. guttata, same as Vaughan, et al. I'm not sure how I made those mistakes, going too fast, I suppose, but glad I caught them now. Recent publications by Utiger, et al (2002), and others, have revised the group, and this subspecies should now be called, Pantherophis guttatus slowinskii, however, imho.

Thanks for listening to my mumblings...haha...

TC
-----
Ratsnake Haven: Calico and hypo Chinese beauty snakes, Mandarin ratsnakes, Chinese twin-spotted ratsnakes, South Korean Dione's ratsnake, leopard snakes, Great Plains ratsnakes, and corn snakes

Thanks for the info Terry! From the perspective of many I know the slowenski's corn snake is one of lively discussion, and sometimes doubt as to its recent elevation to specific status. I am not informed enough on all the relevant data to draw any judgements of my own. It would be interesting to see how they fit into the scheme with the western populations of E.g.guttata. - Phil

Excellent looking White-Oak phase. If Dwight Good has some this year I'm going to purchase one myself. Thanks for the pic Phil.

Steve

Thanks Steve. Dwight does usually produce these so I would say there is a good chance he will this year. I kept white oaks a number of years ago and regret dropping them from my collection. I have decided to resume working with them again though.

Nice choice Phil. That's a pretty obsoleta you posted. Thanks for sharing.

Terry Parks

I really love those too. I have never had the opportunity to see a full grown adult yet. What's the longest one you have ever seen? Tom Stevens

Tom, I am sure others have seen them much larger but the largest I have seen was one we found crossing a road in the Apalachicola National Forest one night. It was around 5.5'.