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Good eye, Bob- This one is pretty much the usual coloration of the pinesnakes (sometimes referred to as Louisiana Pine snakes) seen in W. Louisiana and the adjacent cross-the-border regions of east Texas / Sabine River / Big Thicket swamp area - and in the west end of the Florida panhandle as...

I don't think there's much doubt about that, Swwit. The normaly black to dark brown parts of the pattern are definitely dilute. I didn't want to get into the niceties of the degrees of gradation possible in the various hypomelanotic states and the various forms of melanins and pheomelanins - not...

As a long-time fan of REAL cheese steaks I can attest that nothin' "...stand(s) out like Philly !" Dave

Definitely a pine snake. Its background color is certainly a darker ochre/tan than that of the average NJPB pine snake, but it's certainly in the area under the Gausian curve for the species in NJ. In fact, my first thought was that it looked very much like the last Louisiana pine snake I saw...

Sorry. Didn't intend to be redundant. I hadn't noticed that several other had already confirmed its identity. Dave

Eastern kingsnake. Indubitibly. Beautiful! Dave

Amen, Brother Bob! Dave

I should acknowledge that I got that gem in 1960 from the father of a college friend. The father was a biochemist with Wyeth pharmaceutical corp. and worked on several projects related to their production of "Nearctic Polyvalent Crotalid Antivenin" Criley ! Dr. Criley - father of Dick...

IMHO the term "integrade", with its usual connotation of "hybrid" between species is far too often used when an individual of one species bears a pattern suggestive of a mix of features of the characteristically different patterns of two ostensibly separate species. In the mid 50s I had the...

Brandon and Bob (...bleton)- Thanks for the additional info and the link to the NJ site on the marbled sal. Ain't life / the world / all of metaphorical "creation"/ the Cosmos fascinatin'? Dave

Sorry, Brandon, I'm clueless as to sexual dimorphism in marbled salamanders - And when I find my next one in the Pine Barrens, it'll be my FIRST! I'm recalling something weird (from a conversation with Dr. Ed Bellis of the Zoology Dept. at Penn State in the summer of '61) about the...

Just a followup to my previous comment. The kingsnake.com site has an ad from an East Texas Herp group, but my conclusion that the site is from a Texas group is probably unwarranted. I went back in the thread on that kingsnake.com list and found that they really are talking about the New...

Hey, C.J.O'N (Dragoncjo), Did you get an e-mail message confirming that this fellow was, indeed, talking about the NJ Pine Barrens? That website is from an East Texas herp group. When I lived in Texas and heard the local herp enthusiasts talk of herping in "the pines", they were usually...

No, they don't. The "cottonmouth" or "water mocassin" reaches the northern extreme of its coastal plain range in Dismal Swamp, in SE Virginia, and its mid-continent northern extreme at the southern tip of Illinois (or used to about 50 years ago...) Dave

If that's a statement, no question mark is needed, and I would believe that you have, as there is quite a bit in the scientific literature on the subject. If it is a question, it's one only you can answer. Sorry for the tone of the above. I'm tired. Should have said t'Hell with the day...

Certainly, watersnakes and cottonmouths are known to eat fish landed by fishermen ( if the fish are not too large to be swallowed) so I suppose this could be called "scavenging". However, a copperhead, or any other species of snake, feeding off a road-kill carcass? Ophidian dentition has...

Howzbout run that fishline around the perimeter and tie it to a stack of empty beercans you found there? I think there'd be an object lesson there somewhere for the overzealous gendarmarie. Dave

I would love corn based ethanol. Or sugarcane. Or whatever - so long as it's a domestic alternative to foreign sources of fuel. It just needs to be renewable, energy efficient, and cheap. I'm with you, Ben. I hope it proves out! I spent some time in the middle east (Saudi Arabia) and truly...