What species of Milksnake???

[bri-86]

I just purchased a baby milksnake Saturday and the breeder I bought it from said it was a normal nelson het for albino, it was also marked on the container it was in. My question is my milksnake has yellow bands instead of white, so after looking at many pictures on the computer I have not seen any nelsons with yellow. So I was wondering if it could maybe a Mexican Milk? I've seen some pictures that do resemble a Mexican Milksnake but I'm not sure.

If anyone who knows little more about milksnakes could give me some more information on this, would be great. Here is a couple of pictures, there not very good but hopefully will help. Thanks!

 

[Nanci]

Looks like a Nelsons to me!

 

[kalena]

I'm no milk snake expert by any means, but my good friend has some. Maybe it's a Sinaloan Milk Snake? She had one of those, and it looked exactly like this.

 

[kalena]

One thing I have learned on this forum - I have yet to see a snake that looks the same as an adult as it did when it was a baby...! So maybe those yellow bands will turn white in time.

 

[bri-86]

The yellow bands was what made me wonder but like said above those colors may change overtime either way I like him. I was just curious.

 

[Snakewhisperer]

Sinaloans are more orange than red, it looks like a baby Stuart's, we hatched some before at the museum here. But then there are the broad red bands, so maybe it would lighten up as it aged? could even be a hybrid, they are all same species

 

[Nanci]

Why would you think the breeder didn't identify it correctly??

 

[Snakewhisperer]

Why would you think the breeder didn't identify it correctly??

Maybe because most look exactly alike, are sometimes interbred with other species in the wild/captivity without knowing it, and the differences are VERY subtle anyways. Or the breeder could have bought it from someone else and is trusting their identification, etc.

p.s. milksnake taxonomy BLOWS!!!:twohammer

 

[Nanci]

What color are the bands?

 

[Snakewhisperer]

Blue oke:

Sinaloan:

Mexican Black:

Nelson's:

 

[Chip]

Sinaloan and nelson's are "practically" the same animal taxonomically (if that's a word). Appearance-wise, that animal looks more like a classic sinaloan to me (longer red bands). Sinaloans I've had got a bit larger than my nelson's, but care, behavior, etc. are pretty much identical.

 

[bri-86]

What color are the bands?

If you look at my pictures the bands on my snake are yellow every nelson I have seen are white. I'm not saying he is wrong I was just curious if there was other color combinations of the nelson milksnake. I'm a newby to this so I just wanted to get some other input.

 

[gelshark]

I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion on the difference between the two, but i go with this: "The Nelsons' Milksnake is very close to the more common Sinaloan Milksnake in appearance, size and temperament. The primary diagnostic feature is that the black rings are 2-3 times the width of the white rings." as found on Sean Niland's site

looks more like a nelsons than a sinaloan to me
But that is one nice looking snake

 

[Fatman608]

Hey Bre-86,

I would go over to Fauna and ask there opinion on the milksnake forum and it would help if you had better pictures.

Love the Fatman

 

[Nanci]

The snake I posted is an albino Nelsons. You can see the bands are yellow.

 

[Nanci]

And if you do a search for "Inez," you can see my Nelson's who _came from_ Sean Niland. She has yellow bands. She's aberrant, so she doesn't look like yours.

 

[bri-86]

Thanks for all your comments. I'm still thinking nelson the more I look at other pictures.

Were getting off to a good start I've held him a couple times now no musking or biting and he ate his first pinky today within a couple of minutes.