What Color is this Ribbon

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Noah M
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What Color is this Ribbon

Post by Noah M »

Found in the southwestern half of Dixie County, FL. What color would you call this? What subspecies would you call it?

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Also found this juvi Brown Water, which was a pleasant surprise for Dixie County.

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simus343
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Re: What Color is this Ribbon

Post by simus343 »

It looks akin to the peninsular ribbons that I saw in Wakulla county back in 2013. A friend of mine has blue-stripe ribbon pictures from Jefferson county (so there could be apparent phenotypic variation), but the Jefferson ones are very obviously blue. Not quite similis garter snake blue, but still definitely blue.
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Noah M
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Re: What Color is this Ribbon

Post by Noah M »

I think there are blue-stripes in Wakulla too, for what its worth.

I've been going back and forth on a lot of these. I found the ribbon pictured below 100% certainly in blue-stripe range, but it isn't blue. It is more green. I wouldn't call is a peninsular ribbon by location alone, but the coloration doesn't seem right to me either.
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The trouble is I'm not sure the subspecies designation is a well defined. Most books I find say peninsula ribbons are shades of tan, yellow, or light brown. Blue-stripes are dark brown to black with blue or white accents. But, the darker of the two snakes pictured in this thread came from farther inland, which runs counter to what I would expect. But given the descriptions, I'd call both of these T.s. nitae even though neither are particularly blue in color.
simus343
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Re: What Color is this Ribbon

Post by simus343 »

Looking back at my Peninsular Ribbon Photos, I now see the dorsal stripe on them and agree that the snakes in question may be blue-stripes.

That being said, as you mentioned that the designations are a little hairy, there is something that many naturalists working around the bend of Florida call the "gulf coast ribbon snake" which is basically like a goini king snake (Apalachicola x Eastern). It is a mix of two subspecies, making a "third" less official subspecies and more of a mutt-phase name. This "gulf coast ribbon snake" may allude to the ribbon snakes with a "hazy" phenotypic expression that is sort of peninsular and sort of blue-stripe.
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Noah M
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Re: What Color is this Ribbon

Post by Noah M »

At least we can agree they're eastern ribbon snakes :beer:
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walk-about
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Re: What Color is this Ribbon

Post by walk-about »

Beautiful pics Noah!! I think Ribbons are quite amazing and those especially.

Dave
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