Yes, if the pupils are black, then it's most definitely a hypo. Andy Barr developed a smaller strain of Hypo Everglades than the the far more common strain, but the one's I have see had a very bright yellow face, throat and chin, so tough to say.

And yes, there are many Yellow Rats that can display high degrees of orange coloration too, and can be virtually impossible to really distinguish from alot of Everglades as you mentioned. Identifying an intergrade, especially with unknown percentages of either subspecies are real tough to identify with certainty too as you could imagine.

Very true, there are many crosses of the two, and also many other crosses too, and even three-way crosses called "Bubblegum" Ratsnakes that are a composite of crossing the amel Black rat into the Yellow Rat's and Everglades. Bill Love developed these right around the late 80's early 90's.

Everglades as a very general rule are a bit smaller than most yellows, but this can of course also depend on many different variables.

Well, yes, the term "origin" is all relative as how far back one is talking about as all organisms literally constantly evolve and change for all sorts of various geographic reasons and causes. But you can certainly know the origins of many snakes up to a given point. For example the Yellow rats I have captured here on the extreme east coast of central Florida have no geneflow from any other obsoletus ratsnake subspecies, such as the Everglades to the southwest, the Gray Rat to the northwest, or the Black rat even further away to the north, etc..so it has become it's own distinct entity in this area. Another simple example would be a Florida kingsnake captured from as far south as you can get in the Florida peninsula by Everglades National Park. That would certainly be a genuinely authentic Lampropeltis getula floridana beyond any question.

Captive-bred snakes can also have very well-known origins too, it just depends on what animals originally started a particular bloodline and exactly where they originated from, and who they were acquired from. Lot's of this can often be traced directly back to certain localities and/or a certain known selective breeders in the hobby.

Also, how well they "key-out" meristic-wise taxonomically(as described by science) from very precisely, methodically described holotypes for their particular race are all indicative of how authentic a particular type of snake actually might be compared to others.

A "Stillwater" hypomelanistic bullsnake would of course trace directly back to wild stock from the Waynoka rattlesnake roundup west of Stillwater OK. There are thousands of them in the hobby today that trace directly back to that very specific locale. Same thing with countless Okeetee cornsnakes originating from the 50,000 acre Okeetee Gun Club estate in Jasper County, South Carolina, etc..., etc....

Anyway, I'm sure you get the idea here of what I mean..LOL!. There are so darn many man-made crossed "counterfeit" types of snakes in the hobby now it is ridiculous, and I see examples of them all the time on a very daily basis on different snake forums, reptile shows, and in any classifieds.


sooooo...........enjoy your hypo!..



cheers!, ~Doug
-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"


serpentinespecialties.webs.com

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