Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What's the difference between an albino Ruthvens and an albino Nelson's? Is it that the former's a kingsnake and the latter's a milksnake? They look exactly alike as babies! What's the difference between a kingsnake and a milksnake? Size? Do they look totally different as adults?

Thanks!

Walt

>>What's the difference between an albino Ruthvens and an albino Nelson's? Is it that the former's a kingsnake and the latter's a milksnake?

well, that's true, but that's only part of it.

>> They look exactly alike as babies!

actually, when you've seen a number of them the differences are pretty distinctive.

What's the difference between a kingsnake and a milksnake? Size? Do they look totally different as adults?

this question's too broad--if you consider all Lampropeltis to be kingsnakes, then the milksnakes are just a subset, a kind of kingsnake with a different common name. I think actually they're distinguished in science by anatomical differences for the most part. Some milksnakes get as big as kingsnakes; some milksnakes are very small, far smaller than any kingsnake (with the exception of the scarlet "king" snake). There are half a dozen or more subspecies of kingsnakes in north america, and 26, i think it is, kinds of milksnakes ranging from the northeastern U.S. to south america. And how they look as adults varies widely.

a non-answer answer, perhaps...but i think it's factually sound.

peace
terry
>>
>>Thanks!
>>
>>Walt

Can you expand on the differences you mention?

Thanks,

Walt

have you searched this forum's archives? this subject's been discussed numerous times (and sometimes by people more expert than I).

If you haven't searched the archives yet, do a search of this forum (select "current" as the forum to search) for

milk king difference

and see if that yields what you need.

peace
terry

I searched:

ruthvens nelsons difference

I got no hits in Current
I got no hits in 2005 Archives
I got a bunch of junk in 2004 Archives (ie. the word "difference" in the hit, but NOT "ruthvens" or "nelsons". It also included responses from other forums (Boas, Chaemeleons, Box Turtles, etc). I also got 74 pages of that junk, so I didn't try 2003 archives.

If anybody knows the actual differences between amel ruthvens and amel nelsons, please tell me...

Thanks!

Walt

walt, i could have sworn when i did the search, preceding each word in the search with a plus sign I got a list of pertinent threads. I just tried again and didn't see any directly addressing your question. dunno whether the search yielded diff results or i thought i saw something that wasn't there, the first time i did it. it IS a question that comes up a lot, so i thought it'd be easy to find an earlier thread where people more expert than I described the anatomical diffs etc. Looks like i was wrong. My bad.

I think the Markel book on Kingsnakes and Milksnakes describes some of hte differences. It would also point out diffs in scale counts, triad counts, and other diffs between the two specific types of animals you asked about.

terry

Thats a nice corn snake you have there??
Dave