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...

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