Reptile & Amphibian Forums

found him/her in my backyard...specimen is 12-14 inches long so i am assuming it is a hatchling. thanks.

looks like our black rat that we found.. similar markings but hard to tell with a small pic..

I saw on the other forum that you found it in South Carolina. To me, it looks like a yellow rat or an intergrade.
Kinda hard to tell from such a small pic.
Chris

by the way, i live in midlands area of South Carolina. this snake is about 12-14 inches long, found in a cinder block hole.

Thats definitely an E. obsoleta. From your region its probably an intergrade between a yellow and a black- aka greenish rat.

All the obsoleta hatch with that kind of grey/black pattern. I've found juveniles in VA in early may (still chilly out) that are that size so it could be a late '02 or an early '03.

The way you tell from that angle is that the rear headmarkings don't form a spearpoint (most, if not all corns, have a spearpoint). For further ID, the stripe through the eye will stop on the upper lip- in corns it continues down the neck. Also, the underside of corn's tails are often striped and belly markings are large and bold. Obsoleta belly markings are much smaller. (see Conant and Collins/Peterson field guide for this info)

nice find!
Van

yah.. it looks similar to the one we found.. we live in eastern NC.