Reptile & Amphibian Forums

... sweeet!
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

Pretty amazing how mex hogs mimic massasaugas ain't it!
Mex milks and Tex corals too.

"Thats why God invented flashlights, glasses and sobriety!"

Really, I have never seen any resemblance at all.

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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

wow, that is a NICE hog...Ive never seen a western that looks so much..like..well and EASTERN! I like the indistinct pattern.
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- Happy herping!

KE

.. over here in Texas the eastern hognose don't look anything like this.. Easterns are H. platirhinos, this is Heterodon nasicus.. and if you count the azygous scales you'll see it is H. nasicus kennerlyi (Mexican hognose)..

I have some photos of some easterns from Wilson county here somewhere, if I can find them I'll show you what I mean.
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

I'd love to see what the easterns look like in your neck of the woods. I really love their variability. I have one that has yellow skin, grey scales, and black markings...really beutiful, weird looking critter.
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- Happy herping!

KE

I mean't how the facial stripes and faded lateral spots are similar. Although in that particular hog specimen less so than in some Val Verde examples...

Sistrurus is not found in Val Verde county.. what are the hognose mimicing there?

I'm sorry, you're going to have to explain this to me.. I see no mimicry, in color, pattern or behaviour between the S. C, edwardsi and the H. nasicus in Texas..

Let's see what you mean..

Thanks!
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

2 show you the similarities...if you keep free handling those tricolored cobras! I hope no blossoming young tejicanos see & repeat such foolhardy stunts.

Saludos, RxR

>>Really, I have never seen any resemblance at all.

I have to agree with you about kennerlyi, they don't look much like anything but a kennerlyi.

However, I have found Western Hogs (nasicus) that, at first glance, gave you reason to hesitate and I have on two occasions almost picked up a yearling viridis and a catenatus when I was "expecting" a hognose. A lot of it has to do with the fact that they are found in the same habitat and have a similar pattern, particularly in areas where the hogs have white edging around their blotches.

Chris

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Chris Harrison

I had a friend (from Germany originally)who knew snakes well and was road cruising at dusk just North of here(Baton Rouge)and saw a hognose in the road. He asked his wife to go pick it up as they don't bite and she was bitten. It was a pygmy!! So I quess superficially they can resemble each other a bit. As far as the tricolor pattern goes, when the snakes are moving rapidly, the pattern becomes disruptive and the snakes almost disappear becoming grey blurs.
Jim

What?.. I'm really confused.. milks don't mimic corals.. this has been proven .. small predators bitten can't survive envnomation by corals, they would die. So where's the learning of the experience passed on to other predators?

Both the coral and the milk utilise the opposing color banding which apparently deters some predators,.. but they are both largely fossorial and seen in the open in the day at a distance they mostly appear black.. we don't know enough about this to make those assumptions.. and Corals are mostly inoffensive when encountered in the day at close range when their colors are seen.

And look also at some very venemous corals from central and south America that look nothing like a milksnake (M. psyches, as an example).. the coral/milk mimicry is misunderstood and way overstated.

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The mimicry thing is being way overstated, look at the natural history, not just the overt appearance.

This is my opinion.
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

I'm now sorry I posted my flippant comment in such a way, you seem to be quite incensed. I am familiar with your arguments concerning mimicry fallacies...sorry you took it as a challenge of sorts. It was an attempt at humor and acknowledgement more than anything else. That behind us, have you any pictures of Drymobius margaritiferus?
Enjoying the pics,
Lance G

gus, having hunted west texas for years now, i have never seen a edwardsi, have you seen them out there, marfa area, etc.. last sept. a friend and i thought we had found one on a road west of marfa at sunset but it was a hatchling viridis. do you find them uncommon in the thornscrub in south texas?? great to see one posted.keep up the great posts/thanx/jon

I don't know how to find them out west. Here, in specific parts of Starr, Brooks, Willacy, Kenedy, Hidalgo and Jim Hogg counties they appear to be seasonally abundant.

Be safe.
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

Easterns are quite a bit darker

TC

nt

Gus, is that a western or desert massasauga? Here's one from Rockport area.
Todd Hughes

>>Gus, is that a western or desert massasauga? Here's one from Rockport area.
>> Todd Hughes
>>

Gus's must be a desert, if it's from Starr Co, according to range maps, but yours could be a Western, from Rockport. Funny, but the deserts from se. AZ look different from both of those, too. The Westerns only have a small range along the coast, as the pygmies come in from the East to down past Galveston, I think. Must be something going on in that intermediate zone bt. s. TX and e. TX. that allows a second ssps of S. catenatus to come in. I think they're probably habitat specific, which separates the three different rattlers.

TC

Gus,

I noticed it had cooled down a bit. Did you by chance get these guys cruising in the mid afternoons?

Congrats on your finds.

Take Care,

Steven Owens