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Found an unusual scarlet kingsnake

M

mbradley

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I would like to get some thoughts on a scarlet kingsnake I found a couple of days ago. It's habitat was harvested recently. Pinewoods. Could not believe the size of it. I got it home, put it in a 36" terrarium. When it stretched out along the side I could see that from nose to tail it ran the whole length minus 4". I never have seen a 32" inch scarlet. I have seen a lot of eastern corals that are 30+ but never a scarlet kingsnake. It also seems thicker than most scarlets. It has the beautiful coloring of red black yellow black red as would be expected. Very bright colors. One thing odd about the pattern, Halfway down the snake two of the yellow stripes join up and form a circle on top of the back, instead of running around like the rings. This only occurs the one time. My herp vet is out somewhere on vacation. I can't wait to show the snake to him. I gave him a baby I found a couple of years ago. Any comments? Will post pics as soon as husband takes them with a decent camera. Couldthe unusual marking and the size be related?
 
Im wondering if it isnt some sort of a hybrid. The record for scarlets is 27 inches in length, so if it isnt a hybrid, you may have just broke a record. As far as the pattern goes, I dont think that its because of the size... Sorry I couldnt be more help :)
 
Also from all the ones that I have seen as well as the pictures that Im finding online, the banding on the one you found is closer together. Dont know if that makes a whole lot of sense, but usually there is more spacing between the reds and blacks...
 
Strange Scarlet Kingsnake

Thank you for your help. Actually my terrarium is 30 not 36 inces. The snake measures somewhere between 26 and 30 inches.

All the scarlets that I see have the same banding distance for the most part,

I have found that in this area there are a few species of snakes with unusual coloration for the species or strange patterns. I see quite a few pygmies 3 of them, one adult and two babies had highly unusual coloring. This is out of about 200 sightings over 5 years. Mostly I see the babies on my walks.
 
I would say definitely break out the tape measure and see what you come up with :) Record length is only 27", so you might have something sweet on your hands :)
 
You might have to have someone help you. If you get one of the soft measuring tapes, for sewing and stuff, you should be able to have someone hold onto the front half with the tape and then you work the length (very patiently) and see what you come up with... Just a suggestion, really have no idea... Or maybe a piece of string, and then measure the string???
 
a nice big scarlet king. Aberrancies are not that uncommon in scarlet kings and though many are "perfect" many are also more aberrant than yours too.
Beautiful snake.
:Mark
 
definitely a scarlet kingsnake. I used to catch some pretty ones like that back when I lived in South Ga. just not as large.
 
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