Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hopefully this will be an easy question for someone. We had clutches of eggs laid by both our everglades and yellow rats and didn't bother keeping track of which were which while incubating (duh). Can anyone tell me a reliable way to tell the hatchlings apart...other than waiting for them to grow up...

dont know if the photo is still there, but if you scroll down a ways there is a photo if a yellow and glades hatchling together.

someone asked the same question you did.

This should be an easy one. An Everglades Rat Snake has a red tongue. The tongue of a Yellow Rat Snake is black.

yup I posted a pic a ways down. The tongue thing can be more obvious on some animals than others. Some of my hatchlings take some time for their colors to show, but I generally can tell by the belly quite easy. The glades' bellies are nearly always more orange/pink than yellows.
:Mark

Thanks guys. I swear I did a search on this forum and missed that somehow.

The reason I asked was because all the hatchlings I have look nearly identical. Both clutches may have come from parents that were probably some mix of yellow and everglades. All the babies are closest to the color of the yellow in that pic with a pattern closer to the everglades (head pattern and the lighter areas on the back blotches) and tongues that are mostly black but pink near the base. Who knows how they'll turn out. Two of the possible parents were recently caught and probably mated before we got them. (I had forgotten about that until just now).

WC glades don't really seem to breed true. They tend to have to much yellow rat in their background. So I would say that all of your babies are yellows. The glades I have hatched out look a lot different than yellow when compared. Here is a clutch of glades but without a yellow thrown in this may not help.
Later Jason

what about their bellies when compared (neos/subs)?? I use that in the field too, sometimes at night it's easier...
I'll put my "yellowest" yellow and my "orange-est" 'glades adults together for a pic one day. Now that'll be a difference.
:Mark

The snake on the right front?

Here are three florida rat snakes. Yellow on left, everglades in the middle. All yearlings. I hope Mark can figure who is in the right front pic?

Dan

I found both in the same shed.

Dan

Two more rats found on the same road on the same day within 1/2 mile of each other. Interesting how they can be so different.

Dan

For wild caught, they both look very good - a nice Yellow and a nice Glades.

What is also interesting is that this orange/reddish colored green water snake also exsists in isolated populations in the everglades.

Dan

Sheesh! It's late. I've seen a few like that at that age but I dunno. Deckert's?
:Mark

and those deckerts were bred in Germany and imported so its October fest for them.

Dan

Cool. Do you also have Gulf Hammock rats as well? Some of those can be very nice. It seems the variation in the rat snakes is just huge. Even in the same locale you can find such different looks.
Anyone heading to Tampa show this weekend???
:Mark

Well they are on my list but I have a really attractive male grey rat that was wild caught I need to eventually fit into a pic and post soon.

Dan

On my monitor these look pretty accurate...

The Glades would have red eyes. To be honest, they almost look like they could be Grey Rats. They are probably Yellows but its just tough to be sure.

Did u breed yellow/glades together? the juvi looks like a yellow rat,but has a oranges belly, maybe a intergrade? Hey dan can u post some more pics of yellow, glades that u have caught?

They are posted in this thread above.

Dan

The one you posted looks like most of the wild type glades I have seen as babies. The thing is they end up being anywhere from yellowish orange to brown orange to just what you think of as a glades as a adult. I think Dwight Good said it best awhile back when he suggested that you get about 4 or 5 of each sex to better your odds of getting a glades looking adult pair. If you don't mind growing up a few snakes to get one good pair than there is no problem. You may indeed get just what you are looking for in every baby but that has not been the norm that I have seen.

Also the red eyes and red tongue thing is not that accurate of a indicator of a snake being a true glades. People get confused and forget that all snakes have variance and eye and tongue color alone is not how the snakes are told apart. I have produced black tongued babies that turned out to be smokers as adults. So good luck with your snakes and try to line breed for color and you might get somewhere.
later Jason

are part of the original description.

Yeah and that description didn't hold up
later Jason

Sorry had to