Help to ID Southern Illinois Snake

[barncat]

Hello. I was pointed to this forum to post for help with snake ID. I photographed this wild snake in my grass just yesterday. I did my best to try and figure out the species on my own with online "snakes of Illinois" sites, but since I am a "snake noob" and this is obviously not an adult snake I found it difficult.

S. Illinois snake approx. 8-10 inches and "pinky finger" thin. Bright daytime light so he/she is a bit more milky-white/grey in body color, than milky-white.

Thank you :) (P.S. my noobish, uneducated guess is eastern white milksnake hehe)




https://www.flickr.com/photos/28060429@N08/20769754184/in/dateposted-public/

[Bandit]

Racer of some sort. I'm not sure exactly which subspecies you have up there, but definitely a juvenile racer.

[SSSSnakes]

Looks like a baby Southern Black Racer to me.

[FWK]

Yep it is a Juvenile Racer, either a Brown-chin (Coluber constrictor helvigularis) or Southern Black (C. c. priapus) depending on exactly where in southern Illinois it was found. It is harmless and very quick. Thanks for sharing.

[barncat]

Testing another way to post photo here - insert image:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/28060429@N08/21205351529/in/dateposted-public/

ok don't think that worked, just wanted to give you a better image to view. I'll try again later.

[barncat]

Thank you all for your help in identifying! I think the mystery of whether it is a brown-chin or southern black will never be known. I have taken a look at the range of racers by subspecies (map over at herpersguidedotcom) and the range "division line" between the brown-chin and southern black crosses over my county. Regardless of this I am grateful to know this is a racer and have truly enjoyed reading up up about them.

https://flic.kr/p/yAnAGt

[barncat]

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/662/21392391515_a79afd049f_z.jpg

This post was to try my hand at inserting a photo. YAY I did it (hopefully I can remember how I did it LOL). I think this is much better than my original "attachment."

[barncat]

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/670/20769754184_abe8952605_z.jpg

Alright I am business now. Thank you all for allowing me to test my picture inserting skills here (I'm good to go now). I think as snake lovers you can appreciate these image pictures better than attachment.

[rubbertoes]

Yeah! I have 2 baby yellow bellied racers, which looks very very similar to that right now. however, when they grow up they will be extremely different.