Herpin' in IL. Is this a milk, prairie king or eastern fox?
 

Ok so this will be my thread for the Herping I have done, specifically and limited to my experience from early september and thereafter. I will come back and type my story in more length.

In the meantime, I have to hit the Gym. Here is a guy I found at my local state park. He was under a trash can lying on the dirt underneath. It was considerably dry underneath and i could barely tolerate fingertipping the drum cuz it was dead in the sun.

So, what do you guys think. At first i thought Eastern Fox snake, but not anymore. Here in our herpetology lab we are debating, my professor thinks its Lampropeltis Triangulum or Lampropeltis calligaster. I think its the latter. I can recall the body being "loaf-like" in cross-section terms. The scales may very well have been lightly keeled. I was so excited that I took a bunch of pictures but never slowed down to actually take down observations for identifying. I was focused on picturing the animal and then returning it ASAP as to minimize energy loss and whatnot.

That's a Prairie King.

Prairie King.

Yup Lampropeltis calligaster calligaster it is! nice snake!

Definitely a Prairie king. Catch em all the time down here in Southern IL. Further down south they tend to be more Grey and washed out.

where in southern Illinois do you guys catch this beautiful snakes all i can ever find is red sided garters and three lined garters and a few black rat snakes and i live in Edwards county right by Evansville Indiana

Like the others said, Prairie King

I find them more around marsh type areas or around lakes/ponds. I know they are common in large fields as well. Very hard to find, tend to burrown under vegetation and such. I do a lot of fishing, and always seem to find them around ponds/lakes. While keeping one under observation a couple years ago, it would only eat small frogs, lizards or snakes, never would take a small mouse.