Diadophis punctatus vandenburghi (alt. vandenburgii and vandenburghii)
Like with quick birds, I often only photograph snakes after they've died. This one was difficult to miss, because we found it belly-up with bright orange in the middle of the dirt road. It was roughly 16 inches long. Ants had already started meticulously carrying little bits away. I wish I had more patience to have taken better photographs, I mean it was dead after all and wasn't going anywhere. The color differences between the two photographs above of the dirt and the orange was exactly what my camera picked up; I did not do any color correction in the computer. I had a challenging time finding information on ring-necked snakes that wasn't overly generalized, especially with the alternate ssp. spellings. This snake definitely does not have any black speckling typical of the Monterey ssp. It looks more like the coral-bellied ring-neck snake (Diadophis punctatus pulchellus) found inland in the Sierra Nevadas, but according to some taxonomic notes these subspecies could be lumped together as a coastal CA lineage.
8 comments:
Katie: per your question on the Dipper Ranch blog, yes, I have seen ring-necked snakes but, funny, I guess I haven't posted about them yet. Cal Herps is the best site around for CA reptiles and amphibs and I know you refer to that frequently. I think I have noticed that some snakes lose some of their color when they are dead but I would think that black speckling would not fade. Another reference I just checked sorted the subspecies somewhat by how many rows of the side scales (in addition to the differently shaped belly scales) the orange color covered. That source is Reptiles of the Northwest, Alan St. John, Lone Pine Press - although for areas farther north than us it is still an excellent book. Funny, the rangers brought me a smashed gartersnake tonight because it had a bright blue belly. We used CA Herps to confirm that it was not the rare San Francisco gartersnake. Gary Nafis has done an incredible job on the Cal Herps website.
Hey, Cindy. Ah, a potential topic for a new post! I specifically went to your blog for more information, because you're still the queen snake lady to me. I know my google search boxes don't find everything on my blog, so I wondered about yours. I linked to Gary's site in the scientific names above and queried him yesterday when I posted this. He agreed with me that the absence of speckling was unusual, but that it probably wasn't unheard of. So, I guess he's not sure, either. He commented about the SSAR having changed the spelling and some reference to the CNAH list. I'm going to have to look up the acronyms. It was his site that I found the info about possible reorganization of the ring-necked snake subspecies. Gary has really improved CaliforniaHerps since I started this blog in 2009. I'm adding your book recommendation to my list. Thanks!
I've heard from some herpers that the subspeciation of these little charmers is probably broken/incomplete. I've found a number of them in the SC Mtns, and CA, with and w/o spots, and in many shades of green and coral. Here's a nice spotted one from Edgewood Park for reference. I agree with Cindy that I don't think the spots would fade.
Ooh, that's a beauty that you found, Ken! I love how they turn upside down to flash the bright orange. Eh, green and coral? Were you down in the San Diego area
? Do you recall where you saw the ones w/o spots? At the bottom of Gary's spp. pages (linked in the scientific names above), he talks about the 4 lineages and provides a map of their ranges.
ps - Gary just now changed/corrected the spelling on his site. I've also added links to SSAR and CNAH in my online ID resources under herps.
I've seen them with and without spots in San Mateo, Mariposa and San Luis counties. Haven't herped in San Diego yet. Here's 2 from Mariposa: one with spots, and one without. I'm kinda in the camp mentioned on the calherps page - I think molecular analysis needs to be done to truly sort the subs.
Ken, the ones you found are tiny! I suspected my 16" one is on the large side. Your Mariposa Co. ones could be pulchellus ssp. or also part of the coastal CA lineage (interesting how there's two small areas of coastal inland). If you ever get pictures of non-spotted ring-necked in San Mateo or San Luis, please let me know. Also, I'd love to see pictures if you ever come across a green and coral one again.
You want tiny? Check this sliver of one out. Note the very dark color, too. And here's a beaut from the Chimineas Ranch in SLO with soft green, and no black on the neck ring at all. There's a few more in my flickr stream if you wanna check them out - do a search on diadophis. You may want to search all of flickr for that term too - there's a good thousand photos of ringnecks on it.
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