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I chose this regular brown nerodia sipedon because of her colorful belly. She gave birth to 36 babies.

There is a strong population of red phase nerodias at one of my favorite herping spots. This is a young male.


Trying to get a shot of his orange belly.

I saw 11 high-black nerodias in a couple of hours in the Virginia Beach area, as well as some regular browns and a hybrid of the 2 phases. A ranger told me he saw a black phase mating with a brown phase and mistakenly concluded that color indicates sex. I've seen only one of this type in Richmond.

All of the "beach phase" snakes I handled were docile from day one, but this big girl wouldnt hold still for a belly shot.

On the same day I found this nearly patternless dark variant with traces of red on the sides. Doesn't he look like the Carolina subspecies?

His belly is 50% black.

Here with flash.

My 4 nerodias like to hide in the same spot. Until I disturb them!

NWS eating carpsucker.

Black phase nerodia eating carpsucker.

The red one is a constant victim of other snakes stealing his food unless I separate them, but this time he had his revenge!

Yepp..Nice 20 snakes per cage going on lol..and hmm A rare black rat snake living with them !