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

dpfecarotta

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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.
 

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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.
 
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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
 
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

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.
 
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