Help to ID Southern Illinois Snake

barncat · 09-14-15, 06:10 PM

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)

Bandit · 09-14-15, 06:19 PM

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

SSSSnakes · 09-14-15, 06:21 PM

Looks like a baby Southern Black Racer to me.

FWK · 09-14-15, 06:22 PM

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 · 09-14-15, 06:26 PM

Testing another way to post photo here - insert image:

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

barncat · 09-15-15, 09:57 AM

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.

barncat · 09-15-15, 10:42 AM

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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 · 09-15-15, 10:54 AM

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 · 09-15-15, 06:03 PM

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.