Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We saved this little one from an impending cat attack a couple of weeks ago. He was found outside (wild) in Russell Co. VA. Which is about an hour and a half north of Bristol VA/TN.

He is very pleasant, and sweet. He loves to have his chin rubbed, and eats very well. I'm just courious as to what he is. Any help would be appreciated.

Carrey

heres another pic

and one more. Also, his belly is white with black squares like a checkerboard.

;

.

soryy to bust ur bubbles ppl, but this is an eastern milk snake

it looks like the twin of the one i have

If your Eastern Milk looks like that, then you have a Black Ratsnake!

If your Eastern Milk looks like that, then you have a Black Ratsnake!

>>soryy to bust ur bubbles ppl, but this is an eastern milk snake
>>
>>it looks like the twin of the one i have

It is not a milk so that might explain why yours ate well for you. Rats/corns do eat well, even straight out of the wild.
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Sonya

but i live in connecticut... do they come this far?

now im confused and i will post pics soon

>>soryy to bust ur bubbles ppl, but this is an eastern milk snake
>>
>>it looks like the twin of the one i have
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Chris Harrison

hmm my snake looks identical to that except the balck blotches on him have red in them a dark burgandy type color so unless the rat snake has red in him i think its an eastern milk snake

Dude...I don't know what you have. I haven't seen a picture of it, but the picture posted above is without a doubt a juvenile Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta. Post a picture of what you have and somebody will identify it for you.

ID keys:
Milk Snakes and King Snakes have single anal plates and smooth scales.
Rat Snakes have divided anal plates and keeled scales.

I'll admit that pattern-wise they can appear similar, but my recollection of Eastern Milks is that the young tend strongly toward reddish in most cases, eventually turning more brown/tan (sometimes gray) as they mature. The divided anal plate should be the clincher. Rat snakes typically have scales that are only weakly keeled, mainly in the mid-dorsal area; I've seen some young in which the keels were almost indiscernible.

BTW, I've heard that our N. American rat snakes no longer belong to the genus Elaphe! Taxonomists switched them over to something else - Panthrophis, I think - earlier this year. Tricia provided the info last week on a thread on the Rat Snake forum, under the title of "Texas Rat Snake." michaelb

n/p

Yeah, there is a proposed changed to Pantherophis. I haven't heard that it has been made official yet, though. There are some other proposed taxonomic changes within the same genus regarding some of the Elaphe gutatta and Elaphe vulpina as I recall, but I don't really recall exactly which were proposed for what changes. I'm sure if WW sees this thread he'll have more up-to-date information. Hell, I'm still using Lampropeltis getulus and have a hard time trying to keep from calling North American Water Snakes by Natrix. Old habits are hard to break. It will probably take me 10 years to get used to using Pantherophis.

......for your help!

Who would have thought my little guy would start such a thread!? LOL

I figured he was a black rat snake simply cause he was wild caught. He is just so darn cute! We are waiting on his first shed here with us. His eyes turned bluish on Tuesday, so it shouldn't be too long right?

I'm hopeing that when he gets bigger he is one of the ones that turn pure black. That is so amazing to see! But we shall see.

Thanks again

hey, im sorry to keep on bothering you people but do u know where i could see pictures of a single anal plate and a split one... i cant tell the difference

but i think its it single

Go to this website:

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/vsnakes.html

there's a pretty good line drawing there.

Thank you for your help. it has a single anal plate it is not split. i willl have pictures hopfully for friday

>>Thank you for your help. it has a single anal plate it is not split. i willl have pictures hopfully for friday

Milks are tough. Getting them that size or smaller is the only way I ever got WCs started.
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Sonya

`Yeah, there is a proposed changed to Pantherophis. I haven't heard that it has been made official yet, though.'

Since WW hasn't made an appearance... Pantherophis is `official' in the sense that it is a valid name, the change has been published, and no one's published anything else trying to change it back or to some new name. But that just means it's the correct name according to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), whereas what's often more important is whether or not it's the name people use. Given that it's been obvious for some time now that the North American `Elaphe' aren't closely related to the Old World Elaphe, I expect the change to be accepted pretty quickly, though those hobbyists who can hardly be bothered to keep track of any systematic names whatsoever will probably just keep using Elaphe...

Patrick Alexander

Yeah, well sometimes it's not a matter of can't be bothered...sometimes our brain cells fade as we get older and we just can't keep relearning things we learned 30 years ago.. I am one of the ones that still uses Chondro and Lampropeltis getulus, and just recently started using Nerodia instead of Natrix. All kidding aside..it's tough to keep up with proposed changes, accepted changes, etc. unless you are a Taxonomist. The thing is, even if you use Elaphe guttata guttata 5 years from now, people wil still know precisely which species you are referring to. That is the purpose of scientific names anyway.

What bugs me is when you hear people trying to pronounce the names and butchering them. I have heard people pronounce "piscivorous" as "piss-ka-VOR-us", rossalleni as "rose-a-LEAN-ie", "goini" as "go-EYE-nee" or"go-EYE-nye", "getulus" as "JET-you-lus", "Crotalus" as "crow-TAIL-us", "conanti" as "ko-NAN-tee".

If someone uses old taxonomy in casual conversation, but pronounces it correctly, I'm OK with that. If you are writing a paper, or an article, then you need to use the most up to date taxonomy.

`Yeah, well sometimes it's not a matter of can't be bothered...sometimes our brain cells fade as we get older and we just can't keep relearning things we learned 30 years ago..'

Ok, there are legitimate reasons, too.

`I am one of the ones that still uses Chondro and Lampropeltis getulus, and just recently started using Nerodia instead of Natrix.'

Personally, I'm going to keep on using Chondropython, but that's just because I think Kluge's full of it if he thinks they ought to be Morelia.

`All kidding aside..it's tough to keep up with proposed changes, accepted changes, etc. unless you are a Taxonomist. The thing is, even if you use Elaphe guttata guttata 5 years from now, people wil still know precisely which species you are referring to. That is the purpose of scientific names anyway.'

I agree. But, then, Natrix sipedon would get you some blank stares.

`What bugs me is when you hear people trying to pronounce the names and butchering them. I have heard people pronounce "piscivorous" as "piss-ka-VOR-us", rossalleni as "rose-a-LEAN-ie", "goini" as "go-EYE-nee" or"go-EYE-nye", "getulus" as "JET-you-lus", "Crotalus" as "crow-TAIL-us", "conanti" as "ko-NAN-tee". '

OTOH, I find `mispronunciations' of systematic names pretty understandable--so far as I can tell there simply isn't a consistent and widely used system of pronunciation for Latin in a scientific context, so unless you happen to've heard the `correct' pronunciation (and had some way of knowing it was the correct pronunciation), it's just a matter of guessing. And with `Elaphe', I don't think I've ever seen a consensus on how you're supposed to pronounce that one. I've seen people argue in favor of `eh-LAFF', `eh-LAFF-ee', `eh-LAFE' and maybe another one or two I'm not thinking of. I've always thought the misspelling of `Spilotes' as `Spiloties', which I assume is based of the accepted pronunciation of the last `e' as a long vowel, was pretty amusing, though...

Patrick Alexander

just as in English pronunciation. Here's a URL for one pronunciation guide:

http://www.vatoelvis.com/Latin.html

there are others, also.

The rules linked aren't followed in the accepted pronunciations with which I'm familiar, though.

For instance, rule 2.b. and 2.c. are violated as often than not (i.e., either the second syllable is stressed where it suggests the third, aw-NOTH-er-a rather than en-o-THEE-ra, both the first and third syllables of quadrisyllabic words are stressed, rather than just the third, UM-be-LAT-a rather than um-bel-LAYT-a and MAK-yuh-LAH-ta rather than ma-cu-LAYT-a, or the first and third syllables of quadrisyllabic words are stressed where it suggest the second, BREYE-oh-FEYE-ta rather than bry-OFF-fit-ta and GAS-tro-PODE-ah rather than gas-TROP-od-a) and the vowels it lists as correct in examples often don't fit the accepted pronunciations (see examples listed above-- and, generally, every word for which it suggests a long vowel on the second-to-last syllable (with the exceptions of `duodenum' and `Equisetum') is one for which a short vowel is used there in the accepted pronunciation). I've looked at pages like this a few times in the past, and my experience has been that the pages often suggest pronunciations that differ wildly from the accepted pronunciations. Additionally, long and short `i' don't seem to be clearly distinguished on this page (or short `i's are simply used in this pages pronunciations where they don't occur in the accepted pronunciations--e.g. are all the `i's long or short in `epiphysis'? or is the second `i' long and the others short, as I've heard it? the pronunciation it gives for `echinodermata' is another good example of this problem), and its phoneticizations often list consonants as ending one syllable and beginning the next (bry-OFF-fit-ta, for instance) whereas my experience has been that this sort of construction rarely, if ever, occurs in pronunciations by Enlgish speakers, and is often difficult for English speakers to pronounce well when they try (for instance, it occurs very frequently in Finnish, and ended up being a common pronunciation error in the Finnish classes I took). I know my phoneticizations in this post aren't great, either, but, well, I'd put more effort into it if I were trying to put up consistent rules for people to follow...

BTW, I'm basing my judgments on the accepted pronunciation entirely on what I've heard professors here at IU use. Maybe they professors are wrong, but, then, if the rules are that poorly known they're not very useful.

And that was probably more depth than was really needed, but I'm kinda perfectionist sometimes...

Patrick Alexander

I didn't say they weren't confusing I just said they were fairly consistent.

I have found that more often than not, the accepted pronunciations in English tend to follow the rules. By the way, there are different accepted pronunciations for English speakers as opposed non-English speakers (who normally use the classic pronunciations). I suppose if everyone understands what you are saying it really doesn't matter much, it's just sort of one of my pet peeves when I hear someone mispronounce a word for which the pronunciation should be obvious. For instance, "rossalleni). Everyone knows that the snake was named after Ross Allen. How in the world can you get "rose-ah-LEAN-ee" out of Ross Allen?

`I didn't say they weren't confusing I just said they were fairly consistent'

I guess I disagree on the `consistent' part, but OK.

`I have found that more often than not, the accepted pronunciations in English tend to follow the rules. By the way, there are different accepted pronunciations for English speakers as opposed non-English speakers (who normally use the classic pronunciations).'

I'm aware of a couple of the differences between classical and anglicized pronunciations (IIRC, `c' is never soft in the classical pronunciations, and `ae' would be more in the direction of a long `i' than a long `e'). It also occurs to me that some of the differences I notice between rules I've seen online and whatnot and what I hear might have to do with different academic groups using different pronunciation rules--I think most of the exceptions that occur to me are things I know from botany rather than zoology. Maybe it's just like species concepts, where all the biology texts teach you zoological species definitions as though they were universal, even though they often just don't have anything to do with botanical systematics...

`I suppose if everyone understands what you are saying it really doesn't matter much, it's just sort of one of my pet peeves when I hear someone mispronounce a word for which the pronunciation should be obvious. For instance, "rossalleni). Everyone knows that the snake was named after Ross Allen. How in the world can you get "rose-ah-LEAN-ee" out of Ross Allen?'

My bet--maybe they just hear all these long vowels in second-to-last syllables of other Latin words like the rules suggest (like `ma-cu-LAYT-ta' fer chrissakes... did they -try- to come up with rules that generate moronic-sounding pronunciations?) and assumed that that was a general rule of the anglicized pronunciations of Latin. I don't think the idea that the English pronunciation might be lost in the latinicization is that surprising, though... after all, all the words we've recently stolen from other languages lost the pronunciations of their native languages to be bowlderized beyond recognition, and there are all kinds of words within English that change pronunciation drastically when endings are added--`pronounce' being an obvious example.

Patrick Alexander

That's very true. To me, English (although it's my first language) is a much more difficult language to understand than Latin. At least in Latin, if you see a vowel, you know it's not silent. The rules for long and short vowels, diphthongs and hard and soft consanants are fairly easy to remember. There are some rules (although maybe not completely consistent) as to which syllable to stress....and it doesn't change. As a matter of fact, after a few years of using Latin, you start to develop a "feel" for it and most of the time the pronunciation is fairly obvious, especially if you understand some of the meanings of the Latin root words.

In English, you never know. If you see a word which which you are unfamiliar, you have no way of being sure how to pronounce it, unless there is a pronunciation key along with it or you hear someone else say the word. Words with silent letters are particularly bewildering to me. If you don't pronounce it, why use it? Colloquial expressions and slang are troublesome, also.