Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I look for distinguishing marks in the pattern for id'ing various milksnakes. See the face?

The face of a clown, haha! The head pattern makes this milk hard to forget. Each snake has a distinct pattern, fingerprint, if you will...

More pictures to follow comparing dorsal features and ventral features of milks from differing areas.
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I'll be in Green Valley, AZ from July 21 to August 5, and the Chiricahuas from July 25 to 28th. Anyone that will be in the area and wants to communicate, send me an e-mail with your info. Thanks....TC.

The snake with the funny face is from a coastal area of n.w. Lake Huron. It has a fairly normal pattern with blotches mid-dorsally and blotches laterally...

This milk snake is from Afton, our hobby farm, which is about 37 miles inland from Lake Huron. It has a slightly different pattern. Colors are a little richer. The head pattern is quite different. It also has some spotting in the anterior third of the dorsum, as opposed to blotches, a unique way to remember this snake...

While the coastal milks tend to have those heart-shaped head patterns and fairly normal blotching, our Afton Farm milks tend to have large blotches, that reach almost to the venter, and very little lateral blotching...

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I'll be in Green Valley, AZ from July 21 to August 5, and the Chiricahuas from July 25 to 28th. Anyone that will be in the area and wants to communicate, send me an e-mail with your info. Thanks....TC.

Once again, here's the Lake Huron milk snake. Notice the large amount of black pigment in the ventrum of this snake. I threw in a little red-belly for color comparison, heheh...

This is the Afton Farm milk again. Notice the reduced amt. of black in the pattern, especially in the anterior third of the body...

I've seen some milks with very little black checkers on the ventrum, and an overall light ground color. A few have narrow blotches that almost look like bars. Our milks in n. Michigan tend to be much smaller than average too, usually not getting much over 36 inches. I've even seen one or two that resemble the pale milk snake from much further west.

Milks tend to really have a lot of variation, and you can see why it's hard to even say there are intergrades when a subspecies is changing so much throughout its range.

Love to see those milk snake pics, so feel free to post 'em :O)

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I'll be in Green Valley, AZ from July 21 to August 5, and the Chiricahuas from July 25 to 28th. Anyone that will be in the area and wants to communicate, send me an e-mail with your info. Thanks....TC.

Wow, I have never seen one with such a tight, checkered-flag ventral pattern like that Lake Huron specimen. I really like the eastern milksnakes as well. I've gotta find me some more!

Thanks for taking the time to put that together.
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Tim