FaunaClassifieds - View Single Post - What's the biggest snake that looks like the coral snake?
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Old 01-22-2023, 04:33 PM   #12
WebSlave
Even locality info will be a gray area. I have had this discussion before in reference to "Okeetee" corn snakes.

Who determines where the border of any locality is located? Once that is established, suppose an animal is capture 2 feet outside of that line, headed away from the locality? Then on the other hand, suppose a similar animal is captured 2 feet outside that line, heading TOWARDS the locality?

As an aside, one of the big problems with the neotropical milk snakes was that the exportation points changed often. One country would be more lax than others, so all specimens collected throughout several countries would be funneled through that exportation point. So, saying a milk snake came from Guatemala, would not really express any realistic locality information at all. Then the next year, Costa Rica might be the preferred shipping point.

Wholesalers would often search through all the imports, and put labels on the milk snakes based merely on what they looked like and what they thought they could get the highest dollar for. No one really know where the actual capture points were for such animals. Everything was just guesswork. People who actually collected those animals at specific localities were very few and far between. At least as best as I understand the circumstances....