Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I thought that I had an annulata before, but I have a new theory. I think that my snake is a sinaloae/abnorma hybrid, and not necessarily half & half:

Sinaloan traits
Red bands are wide, 2-3 times as wide as black & pale bands
thin pale & black bands, pale bands are usually only two scales wide
upper snout is mostly black, with no chevron
very calm, active & inquisitive

Guatemalan traits
darker, blood red bands
smallest pale bands at each end are tangerine, most others are golden tan
underside of chin has lines & blotches

I finally found a link that gave a strong clue. It is from a prior Herp forum post by Doug Mong:
http://s212.photobucket.com/user/DMong_bucket/media/blanketyblank_zpse654c9a6.jpg.html

It also turns out that that Doug’s Guatemalan was from Lago de Izabal, an area very near the Yucatan peninsula, where the Blanchard’s snakes have such golden bands.

Here are other examples of Guatemalans, which typically have thinner pale bands than Pueblan specimens, and often display a golden or tangerine pale band, especially near the head & tail. Black bands are often two times wider than pale bands:
http://www.pitt.edu/~mcs2/herp/herp.pics/Lt_abnorma.jpg
http://milksnakes.org/encyclopedia/abnorma.htm

What do you think? What species or cross is your guess?

1.0 Lampropeltis triangulum sinaloae/abnorma?
1.0 Pantherophis guttatus (Tallahassee area colors & patterns)
1.0 Agrionemys horsfieldii kazakhstanica
Link

It's so hard to tell. It's obviously a mix, but nobody but the breeder will know exactly what it is. Even then, only if the breeder knows the history of multiple generations going into the animals he put together. It could be a nelsons, Hondo, sinaloan, pueblan, polyz mix...

The appearance of an animal will not always tell you what you have, especially if you're dealing with a mix or hybrid. I've seen cal king X pueblans that looked like pure pueblans. Then when you consider that most hobby hondurans are a mix of all kinds of things and that most nelsons and sinaloans aren't pure due to being bred together, it becomes a giant mess.

I can tell you that you have a nice looking milk snake though.

Imo a milk is a milk for the most part unless you have locality data or it was produced from pure animals by a trusted breeder.

You made some good points, especially about long-term blood lines - which are rarely pure in the Pet industry.

Yes, my snake is likely a cross, but I still that if it were a Sinaloan x Pueblan mix, versus Sinaloan x Guatemalan mix, pale bands would be wider.

Ultimately - nobody knows and nobody will unless I have DNA testing done.

(When independent researchers actually tested fish DNA in the Portland-Seattle area a few years back, taking many samples from various stores from three major Grocery Store chains, they found that 33% of all samples were wrongly labeled as a more expensive fish, for which a cheaper species has been substituted.)

You and other respondents seem confident that my Milk is a mix. You used the word "obviously".

Compare my photos with this annulata, posted just a few lines down this screen:

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=2024628,2024628

This photo, one other of an annulata, and one of a dixoni, are the photos most resembling *my* snake. Each of them is a recognized, distinct line, however.

What traits in my photos show an "obvious" mix, versus this other sample photo that almost identically resembles mine? Looking forward to your specifics.

imo the black bands increasing in width typically means there is some nelsons influence. also, the color of the light bands being more orange rather than yellow/white usually suggest there is mexican, conants, or blanchards. it's fairly unlikely that anyone is messing with conants or blanchards by putting them with nelsons, so that leaves mexican.

I use the descriptions and pictures provided in "The Systematics and Natural History of the American Milksnake" as my go to source for identifying milks. I think most "milkheads" agree that it's basically the milk bible. even with some subspecies being lumped together with DNA testing, many, including myself are choosing to basically ignore the testing and stick with the guidelines laid out in this book.

If you'd like, you can provide some high resolution close up photos of your animal that make scale counts possible and I can try to key it out in an attempt to more accuratly tell you exactly what you have.

mid-body, head (top, side, chin view), and a full body shot from above with some sort of marking to show exactly where the cloaca is should work.

you can always just pick up a copy of the book yourself too. amazon has them from time to time.

>>imo the black bands increasing in width typically means there is some nelsons influence. also, the color of the light bands being more orange rather than yellow/white usually suggest there is mexican, conants, or blanchards. it's fairly unlikely that anyone is messing with conants or blanchards by putting them with nelsons, so that leaves mexican

Aaron,

The high-orange "apricot" campbelli produce that look in hybrids, too. I've seen it quite a few times at this point. Also note that some wild nelsoni also display an orange wash in their background coloring, making them essentially "tangerine" nelsoni.

Later,
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-Cole

Are there any of these orange/tangeine nelsoni in the hobby that you know of? pure ones? i've never seen any, but would love to get a pair.

makes sense that nelsoni would be capeable of orange bands too, since it does pop up in a lot of other ssp. one of my black milks even had her yellow bands become orange/red before she turned black. I've just never seen it with nelsoni or sins.

Aaron,

I've only seen a few with that orangy/peachy tinge in captive lines, and even then, it isn't much compared to some of the wild specimens. Nelson's Milks, the remaining "pure" ones, anyway, are all decended from a few (at most) wild-caught specimens, meaning the genetic diversity represented in captivity is really low compared to their wild counterparts. Regardless, they don't have quite the same tendency toward that orange background as some of their cousins, but it can still show up.
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-Cole

You defended your assertions with logic, reason & specific examples. What you say makes sense, too.

I'm really grateful for your reply. You added to my Milk snake species knowledge.

The local pet store owner thought that I have a Sinaloan cross. As a final analysys, I'm thinking that what I likely have is:

Nelson's or Sinaloan x Guatemalan or Honduran
(with nelsoni/sinaloae traits predominating)

For almost certain, there is nelsoni/sinaloae in it. The rest will always be suspect but most likely a readily available milksnake like campbelli or hondurensis (or annulata.)

IMO, annulata are still kind of a locality favorite. Anybody can do anything of course, but I bet there is less of a chance of someone crossing annulata with anything else. Nelson x Pueblans on the other hand were done in numbers to attempt to make albino orangey milks.

There are several vendors selling the campbelli x nelsoni crosses in the classifieds on this site right now. Some of them look strikingly similar to the animal posted in the several related threads here on the forum. Strikingly. I've seen that cross being correctly offered as a cross, as well as being offered as "pure" campbelli or "pure" nelsoni for at least 15 years via private breeders and national wholesalers. There are LOTS of them around. One of the more common names I saw/see attached to them are "orange milks" and "Neblan" (=Nelson's x Pueblan) milks.
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-Cole

for providing so much "meat" to the topic.

Your insight & comments are valuable & appreciated.

I think that we're narrowing down the possibilities. I'm fairly confident that he's a nelsoni (or sinaloae) x hondurensis cross, and I *love* his golden tan pale bands.