oh, so it DOES WORK!!!

recently there's been alotta talk going on about a certain rhyme used to describe to different species of snake that always seem to end up going the wrong way.

for those of you who don't know, i'm referring to the coral snake and the tricolour kingsnake. apparently, the tricolour mimics the deadly coral so as to confuse its enemies into thinking that it's more dangerous than it is. there is a rhyme which goes as follows:


<i>red and yellow kill a fellow,, but red and black don't do jack.</i>

this rhyme refers to the bands (or rather colours) that are found on each snake. with the coral, red and yellow always touch (according to the links i'm about to post), and in the tricolour black and red always touch. however, in some species of tricolour(<i>http://enature.com/fieldguide/showSpeciesGS.asp?sort=1&curGroupID=99&display=1&a rea=99&searchText=lampropeltis&curPageNum=8&recnum =AR0818</i>, the red is encapsulated by the black which still prevents it form touching the yellow.

now, there are some back-yard, dishwater know-it-alls and breeders on here that think that because they have bred a few snakes or that because they have "experience" (like that really matters), or that they must use big words and long paragraphs to get across a meager point, that they are the holy messiahs of the snake world and that anyone that goes against them has no idea what they are talking about.

i guess that their wash up ways are more important and correct than those of real PROFESSIONALS who have spent careers reseaching these serpents unlike the peeps on here who just wake up one morning and decide that they know everything.

anyways, i'm just here to say that the rhyme DOES work extremely well in referrence to both corals and tricolours. unlike certain peeps on here, i like to provide proof of where i got my ideas from with nice links that take you to exactly what i'm saying.

before i get carried away, let me post the links.

<i>http://www.jungledomain.org/native.htm</i>

as you can see, the peeps on here do use the rhyme to tell the difference (and help others as well) between the two serpents.

now in this link (and if you go to it all the pages that show the snakes), you can see a variety of tricolours that all adhere to this rhyme as well:

<i>http://enature.com/fieldguide/showSpeciesGS.asp?sort=1&curGroupID=99&display=1&a rea=99&searchText=lampropeltis&curPageNum=5&recnum =AR0193</i>

as for the corals, they too follow it just like the tricolours:

<i>http://www.geo-outdoors.info/coral_snakes.htm</i>


hmmm.....strange, the rhyme seems to work just like the first person that thought it up knew it was.

now unless you can provide proof to show that the rhyme doesn't work on the following snakes that i provided then please do, and don't just pull stuff out your .

even this site <i>http://www.pestproducts.com/coral_snakes.htm</i> gives various warnings as well as mentions the herpetologist that the info came from.

i guess since you peeps have higher degrees and more intelligence than him that you must be right, huh???

it's amazing how many of you claim to hav evast knowledge of these serpents and many other things, yet you often say that the stuffs that are correct are "bull" and that they are "dangerous" and the like.

i've never seen any of you that hate the rhyme, post pics or data or info that disproves the rhyme's claim.

so unless you start to provide proof to support your ridiculous knowledge, then just shut up!!!


as for anyone else who wants more CORRECT info on corals and their mimics, you can use this:

<i>http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&q=coral%20snakes</i>

L8R.




jason.

Much like a neutered dog, you just don't get it. I've grown rather tired of your rudeness and standoffish attitude. Congrats on being the first person to get suspended in 2005.

Actually there were more than just a couple of pics posted that disproved that rhyme..... I must applaud Ken for suspending the trolls...... Good job man.....

What did he last, A month???? LOL

What did he last, A month???? LOL

5 days. It has to be a new record.

I wonder what would happen to this fellow if someone showed him a South American species of Coral Snake. Would he be so ignorant as to believe his little ditty applied to those Coral Snakes from way south of the border??? And that attitude, where did that come from, did someone in another thread tell him that the rhyme did not always hold true? Nice to see he offered lots of proof to support his claim about it, all from the web. Regarding his so called evidence, there was not a herpetology book, or a link to a truly professional herpetological reference mentioned as far as I am aware.

As for that attitude, well he asked lots of questions that seemed almost to much novitiate in nature, and I had though he was either very new to herps or a troll. I guess it came out in his above post. I am happy to see him cut off quickly, but I can say I sure would like to run into him at a show where they allow hots to be sold and where they have SA Coral Snakes for sale. I would love to see him argue his point with the dealer of those babies. Could you imagine the attitude adjustment he would go through if he survived a bite from one of them, that is after having been bitten because he foolishly believed they were harmless based on the rhyme.

Oh well life goes on, at least for those of us who know better than to trust a ditty like that as being applicable in all situations involving coral snakes.

Post deleted. This user has been suspended and signed up with a new name.
WebSlave

It's a shame Seamus never got in on this.

I saw it earlier in the other thread... But I already posted all the information this person was arguing with- just the photos I had added are now dead links. Given that it was who it was... Kinda... didn't bother seeing as they either didn't read or didn't comprehend what I had already said about it. There was nomenclature they could have easily used to verify the inaccuracy if they wanted to.

Quick summation for anyone who might be reading this is in order though I guess. The rhyme is completely wrong for at *LEAST* a dozen species of corals that I know of. It's incorrect when applied to many colubrids- in both directions since there are a number of rearfanged central american species that fall on both sides of the rhyme. There's also a large enough number of phenotypically abberrent snakes (both venomous and nonvenemous) to make trusting the rhyme kind of dangerous.

I usually add... If you don't know exactly what it is, leave it alone. If leaving it alone isn't an option, then treating it as venomous is a better mistake to make given the choices. There are also a couple threads on fauna that go into greater depth (both my thoughts and those of others) if anyone wants to take the time to look.

There was the classic case of the herpetologist who identified a black snake with a faint ring around its neck as a harmless ringneck snake over the phone, and it turned out to be an aberrant melanistic coral snake that delivered quite a bite to the person handling it on the herpetologist's advice. This particular snake is still preserved in a museum collection. I don't recall the details, but I'm sure someone else does as this was a well known and widely published incident.