Snakes 'N' Adders's video: S N A Introducing Series: Episode 50 - Northern Pine Snake Pituophis melanoleucus melanoleucus

• SNAKES ‘N’ ADDERS INTRODUCING SERIES • EPISODE: 50 • NORTHERN PINE SNAKE • (Pituophis melanoleucus melanoleucus) • Quite possibly one of my favourite snakes! • This is for a number of reasons. • This snake has a personality, mood changes, a great appetite, is beautiful in its own way and impressive. This is a large strong colubrid from South Eastern United States. In exceptional cases this snake will pass 7ft in length and have considerable mass. The average is more likely to be a well built 5.5-6.5ft in length. • Snakes from the genus Pituophis are often maligned as grumpy and aggressive. Northern Pine snakes are no different and for a long time have had to fight against this reputation. • Northern Pines are defensive and vocal with it. But generally, that is it, the likelihood of a bite is very low. This is nearly always bluff and northern Pines are the masters of it. Once out and in hand they invariably calm down perfectly well. • Perseverance is key here and not allowing them to put you off with their vocal distaste for disturbance. • Part of the problem is Pituophis snakes have evolved with a filament in their throat which greatly increases the volume and ferocity of their hiss. • This along with the habit of rattling their tail serves as a warning to would be predators or dozy big cloven hoofed neighbours they may stand on them (more the bull snake in this instance). • As you heard from the latin name at the beginning of the video the word melanoleucus was repeated. This means that there are subspecies of Northern Pine Snake. A repeat of the species name means this is the nominate form (or type subspecies). The other subspecies are the Southern or Florida Pine snake (Pituophis melanoleucus mugitus) and the Black Pine Snake (Pituophis melanoleucus lodingi). • On this map we can see how they are distributed. • The main population occurs from Southern North Carolina, South Carolina, Northern Georgia and Eastern Alabama. • Northern Pine Snakes have separate locales which probably shows a shrinking of their origin range and populations have become effectively marooned. These isolated regions include New Jersey, Western Virginia, Eastern West Virginia, Kentucky and two regions of Tennessee. • Northern Pine Snakes have a wide range but many keepers associate them chiefly with New Jersey’s Pine Barrens. These tend to be very cleanly marked with off white cream background colours and very dark almost black saddles and spots. • Northern Pine Snakes intergrade with the Florida Pine Snake along where the species intersect. • The Louisiana Pine Snake is sometimes associated with this group (Pituophis ruthveni) but authors suggest this is an allopatric species. This means it occurs alongside the Black Pine but seemingly does not intergrade. As a result they put them in a clade with the rest of the genus Pituophis occupying central and Western United States and Mexico. • On this im not convinced, but what do I know? • Pituophis literally means Pine Snake taken from the greek words Pitys and Ophis meaning Pine and Snake. • Melanoleucus literally translates to Black and White. Black and White Pine Snake. • In fact Northern Pine Snakes are the type species for the entire genus. • Northern Pine Snakes were fist described in 1803 by Daudin. This makes them a pretty old snake. Ok so not quite as old as the Corn Snake in 1766 but 217 years is a pretty long time to have been described by snake standards. • It has previously been allocated into 4 Genus. Pituophis (repeatedly), Coluber, Churchillia and Rhinechis. The final one being interesting as this was used for the European Ladder Snake as well which is classed with the Rat Snakes but is curiously similar to Pituophis snakes. • Pine Snakes occur predominantly in yes you guessed it pine forest. They are most commonly associated with upland regions (0-500ft) in elevation. They are most associated with long leaf pine forest and these regions are described as xeric (which means hot and dry) – which the climate data for the region seems to argue against. • The soil should be well drained and heavily sand based. The land will be pretty much level in aspect and friable (easily crumbled). • Pine Snakes are adept diggers capable of excavating surprisingly long tunnels (8-10ft). Females will dig a tunnel for egg laying with a chamber at the far end. Multiple females may use this chamber. The tunnel leads down at a shallow angle and raises before the chamber. • Females are known to return to the same nesting sites each year but will usually dig new nests. • These burrowing processes are aided greatly by a specialised rostral scale. This reinforced over size scale makes a useful tool. In the soft sandy soils it makes expedient work of the digging process. The rest of the upper trunk of the snakes body is heavily keeled and rough to the touch, this too will aid to scoop and scrape substrate from the burrow.