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Hello, I'm having a hard time identifying two Brown Snakes I found. After looking at many photo's of other Browns I can't quite figure out if these 2 snakes are Storeria dekayi limnetes or Storeria dekayi texana or if they are one of each. They were both found in Harris County, Texas where both types are known to exist. They were found about 5-6 miles apart. I am not from this part of the country and these are the only 2 Brown Snakes I've ever seen so any kelp would be greatly appreciated!

good luck on that, although Dixon lists limnetes in Harris Co., while texana occurs in waller, montgomery, liberty counties. waller being where the 2 both occur.
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2 tham radix
1 Chicago Tham s. semifasciatus
2 elaphe vulpina
1 gray tiger sallie
4 Aphonopelma hentzi
2 G rosea
1 Haplo minax

Pillsbarry,
In the Dixon and Werler Texas Snakes book, dekayi limnetes is described as having a "dark streak behind the eye"
and dekayi texana as having a "large dark neck patch and upper lip markings". From your pics,
I believe the bottom photo to be limnetes. The top pic looks more like texana to me, but I'm less certain about it.

Here's a couple more pics of the top snake in the previous post. This snakes belly is bright red-orange.


Below is another pic of the second snake in the previous post. This one's belly is white.

Ever consider Red-bellied Snake for that top one?

florida red-bellied, S. occip. obscura. and harris co would be right about where its "range limit" stops.
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2 tham radix
1 Chicago Tham s. semifasciatus
2 elaphe vulpina
1 gray tiger sallie
4 Aphonopelma hentzi
2 G rosea
1 Haplo minax

yeah, I looked up some range maps last night out of curiosity and it looked like Harris CO. was just outside of the known S. occipitomaculata range. I'm sure there are range maps that put Harris County inside it's range just barely but I never like to rule out species because they aren't known from a specific area but have been seen nearby. We pick up disjunct populations of herptile species all the time -- even if no red-bellied snake had ever been seen in Harris County or any of the adjacent counties before I wouldn't rule it out. It would just make such a finding that much more valuable. In this case though, there are adjacent counties that definitely have that species so it makes the likelihood of it occurring where this snake was found much greater.

Also, I'm not arguing for or against the above post -- I was going to include this in my first post yesterday but was on my way out the door and cut myself off. Just food for thought really...

That top one is most definately a Red-Bellied snake. I had occassion to catch one personally while in Giant City campground and had to argue the species with a friend of mine who mistook it for a tantilla. Beautiful little things.
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Mel Goodrich
RavenCrest Reptiles: Sale and Rescue
drune@charter.net

~Updated animal list coming soon~

Really trying to narrow this one down so I can make a proper record of it. What are the features that tell you it's a red-bellied snake? And would it be a Florida or Northern? I read that the Black Hills subspecies doesn't have the three neck dots, but I don't think they would be anywhere near Harris County, TX.

I know I'm really late to the game here (months!), but I lived and herped in Harris County a lot when I was younger. I found hundreds of Storeria and found that both subspecies occur in the county and intergrade there. On the north side of the county they are more likely to be texana while on the south sides they are limnetes.

That Red-bellied Snake is a really significant find! AFAIK, there are NO records of that species in Harris County and that is one of the best herped counties in Texas. Red-bellieds are very spottily distributed in east TX as it is and often overlooked because they often don't have red bellies.

Roughly where in the county did you find it? (I assume in the northern or eastern parts?)

Do you still have the snake?
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

I found him in the extreme South-East part of Harris County. I took a bunch of pictures of him and then released him back where I found him a few days later. I really appreciate everyone's help on this. If he is a redbellied, he doesn't look like any other redbellied picture I've been able to find on the internet.