Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Spotting

Notes:

My guess is a prairie king snake. I'm no expert though. This one is pretty small at only about 12".

2 Species ID Suggestions

Eastern Milk Snake
Lampropeltis triangulum triangulum Eastern Milk Snake
AaronS.Young
AaronS.Young 10 years ago
Western rat snake
Pantherophis obsoletus


Sign in to suggest organism ID

3 Comments

AaronS.Young
AaronS.Young 10 years ago

The color of the pattern appears mostly deep red brown and a darker grey, typical of the young western ratsnake. Milksnakes also generally have thicker and more consistent banding across their back, whereas younger ratsnakes have a broken pattern, more spotty than consistent. Both species are found within the same range.
http://www.ratsnakefoundation.org/index....

Samuel Hartman
Samuel Hartman 10 years ago

I think it might be the Eastern Milk Snake because of the coloring pattern, more specifically the Y on the head. Here is it's living range:
http://srelherp.uga.edu/snakes/lamtri.ht...

AaronS.Young
AaronS.Young 10 years ago

The young rat snake often has this pattern which may act as a mimicking device to look like a young rattlesnake and fool possible predators. After just a few sheddings, the pattern disappears and a black back is dominant. In the eastern ratsnake (Pantherophis alleghaniensis) as well as the western ratsnake (P. obsoletus) the pattern can be seen, though barely, when the snake stretches it's skin.

DanTyler
Spotted by
DanTyler

Trenton, Missouri, USA

Spotted on Sep 25, 2013
Submitted on Sep 25, 2013

Nearby Spottings

Ring-necked snake Cicada Imperial Moth Milk Thistle
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team