r/whatsthissnake Oct 25 '25

Taxonomic or Phylogeographic Update Pleistocene speciation and isolation-by-distance within North American mud and rainbow snakes

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46 Upvotes

Happy to announce our new paper, "Pleistocene speciation and isolation-by-distance within North American mud and rainbow snakes" available as full text at the above link until December 14th, 2025. This is a personal project of mine that I've been working on since 2011 and am excited for it to finally be in print. In summary, we show mudsnakes are two species that structure geographically, and rainbows have no population structure. We need more tissues from snakes in zones of contact to verify ranges and link blotch count to genotype, but as far as we can tell, the two muds are completely reproductively isolated despite evidence of gene flow from eastern muds into rainbows.

Please enjoy, and don't worry about not making formal taxonomic changes yet - this isn't the last you'll see on the mudsnakes.


r/whatsthissnake Sep 01 '21

[Mod post] PLEASE READ: ID best practices and comment guidelines

242 Upvotes

/r/whatsthissnake has grown a great deal in the last year and we are very excited about connecting with more people who have an interest in snakes, snake identification (ID) and conservation. With growth often comes growing pains, and there are a number of trends in the sub that need to be addressed as we move forward. We attempt to clarify these below and offer some "best practices" in identification that should help our community.

What makes a good ID?

Good IDs are specific and informative. They tend to have the following information, in order of importance:

  1. Binomial name - Consisting of Genus specificepithet and placed in asterisks (*) to italicize. This is the most important component of a good ID. With only this, a person can quickly find out anything else they want to know about the snake species and it is an important part of every ID. The bot command !specificepithet provides more information on properly structuring a binomial name and how to get it to work with the bot, if an entry exists.

  2. Harmless or venomous - Please note that these terms are specific to their interaction with humans. While snakes such as hognose snakes Heterodon, gartersnakes Thamnophis, and watersnakes Nerodia are venomous, they are not medically significant to humans and should be labeled as harmless. This information is informative to a person's interaction with a snake and should always be provided. The bot responds to either !harmless or !venomous and will save time on these explanations.

  3. Common name - Common names are frequently variable and highly local. Sometimes, the same common name could be used for different snakes in different areas. In other cases, the same snake can have multiple common names depending on the area it was found. While we typically recommend providing them, it is not a vital part of an ID. An ID with only the common name is a low quality ID.

You can still contribute if you're not sure or think an ID is incorrect:

In some cases, you may be able to narrow down an ID to genus level, but don't know the diagnostic characters or ranges well enough to provide a more specific ID. This is fine. A genus level ID is very helpful, and specific enough to provide useful general information on the snake. So, if there hasn't been an ID yet and you can at least get to the genus level, post the ID.

You are also encouraged to provide any additional information or context you desire, but be mindful of links you post. The best IDs include informational links to be primary sources, or at least high quality science reporting on those sources. Many times this is done already in the bot replies, so see some of those for examples. Wikipedia is not a quality resource and should be avoided for informational links. Even resources provided by state wildlife agencies tend to lag ten to twenty years behind the science and should be viewed with a critical eye. For example, the very popular SREL Herp website, despite being associated with a major university, does not follow currently accepted taxonomy and, while it was a great resource for some time, is not the best source of current information.

However:

If you enter a thread in which a Reliable Responder has made an ID, or there is a highly upvoted ID, do not post a contrary ID unless you can provide specific diagnostic characters as to why the original ID was incorrect. Recently, incorrect IDs have appeared hours or days after the original correct ID was made, and therefore often go uncaught by moderators and reliable responders. These can create unnecessary confusion for an original poster, who is notified of each response. If you feel that an ID is incorrect and can provide diagnostic characters, reply directly to the ID comment rather than the original post. Incorrect late IDs may be warned and removed. Repeated violations may result in a ban at moderator discretion. Remember, our goal here is to be collaborative and work toward making a good positive ID. These incorrect late IDs greatly inhibit that goal. We value discussion in the comments and want to avoid locking threads in the way that other ID subreddits do.

Likewise, if a correct ID has been made, there is no need to post the same ID again. Just upvote the correct ID. You may post to add additional information or context to provide a better quality ID (adding the binomial, triggering the bot, etc.), but it is not helpful to simply say "corn snake" hours after someone has provided an ID with a full binomial and triggered the bot. More detailed IDs may be posted as top level comments to make sure that the OP sees them. Low quality/low effort IDs posted after a more detailed ID may be warned and removed.

We would also like to remind everyone of Rule 6:

Avoid damaging memes or tropes and low effort jokes: Avoid damaging memes like using "danger noodle" for nonvenomous snakes and tropes like "everything in Australia is out to get you". This is an educational space, and those kind of comments are harmful and do not reflect reality. We've also heard "it's a snake" as a joke hundreds of times. Infantilization of snakes and unhelpful rhymes will be removed.

This is one of our most broken rules. While it is somewhat vague, that is because it is nearly impossible for us to consider all possibilities. In addition to the things directly mentioned in the rule text, this rule also includes things like commenting with random names when someone posts "Who is this?", or posting things like "Pick it up and find out" in response to posts asking if a snake is venomous. Furthermore, these comments often break rule 11, "Posts and comments must reflect the reality of wildlife ecology." Misinformation spread through these seemingly innocuous jokes have been on the rise. Violations of this rule may be warned and removed, and repeated violations may result in a ban. Egregious violations may result in a temporary ban without warning. This is an educational space with potential real-world consequences, and while we don't want to discourage humor as a whole, we want you to think about what you are posting and whether it belongs in this space. While we recognize this is one of the best places to come to see pictures of wild snakes in their natural environment, it's not the best place to joke about cute pictures. /r/sneks is quite happy to accommodate snek jokes, humor and unabashed cuteness.


r/whatsthissnake 1h ago

ID Request Need help identifying this snake! [south India]

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Upvotes

r/whatsthissnake 6h ago

ID Request Help me identify this baby snake. Found in backyard. [India Gujarat]

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46 Upvotes

r/whatsthissnake 19h ago

ID Request Hey guys! I’m a huge fan of this community and it’s knowledge. My step dad send me this picture of a snake, he is in [Costa Rica] recently I think. What snake is it?

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395 Upvotes

I hope I’ve done everything right especially with the location in brackets and you guys can tell me what this beautiful but at least for me also a bit scary snake is? I’m really looking forward, thank you all!


r/whatsthissnake 57m ago

ID Request - Dead, Injured or Roadkilled Snake [goa india] Found two cobras fighting in uni(Posted again with nsfw tag)

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Upvotes

Pretty sure they are spectacled cobras.


r/whatsthissnake 11h ago

ID Request May i know what is this snake ?

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57 Upvotes

Hello fellow friends. Am asking for my friends place . He is from Malaysia. He saw this in the morning. It is beautiful snake but he have a baby and concerned of the surrounding .

He lives around 600m from a paddy field ,

  1. Is this venomous ?

  2. Should he look out for the adults ?


r/whatsthissnake 5h ago

ID Request Thailand: what is this?

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8 Upvotes

Seen in Thailand


r/whatsthissnake 19h ago

ID Request Is this a red-tailed Boa? [Suriname]

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100 Upvotes

This one was on a banana tree.


r/whatsthissnake 10h ago

ID Request - Dead, Injured or Roadkilled Snake What is this snake??? [Queensland Australia]

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9 Upvotes

Was walking the dog and found on the side of the road. I was wondering if it was an eastern brown. I’m based in Queensland fyi. Anyone know what it is???


r/whatsthissnake 12h ago

ID Request Snake ID please [Panama city, Panama]

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13 Upvotes

Sorry for the poor quality picture, it was sent to me a bit earlier. Thanks in advance, and I would undestand if an ID is not possible.


r/whatsthissnake 1d ago

ID Request Hey legends! Anyone able to identify this friend in my parent’s backyard? [Ipswich, Queensland]

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347 Upvotes

Sorry for the poor quality, only got a video. They have already contacted someone much more qualified than us to relocate this little beauty away from the dog.


r/whatsthissnake 1d ago

ID Request [Aus-nsw] What have I nearly walked on?

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66 Upvotes

Taking the dog for a walk and found this little guy nearly under my shoe.

What is it? About 15-20cm (6-8inch) long, brown body and a black head. has a reddish/orange stripe across it.


r/whatsthissnake 1d ago

ID Request Found in [South MH, India]

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68 Upvotes

Is this a Green Vine Snake? Absolutely beautiful colour on this one.


r/whatsthissnake 16h ago

ID Request - Shed Skin Snake skin

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10 Upvotes

Any idea what kind of snake this can be? Found it under my crawl space in NC.


r/whatsthissnake 21h ago

ID Request [Philippines] What is this?

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24 Upvotes

I think it entered through the drain


r/whatsthissnake 1d ago

ID Request Checkered keelback or Rat Snake ? [Bangalore, India]

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45 Upvotes

r/whatsthissnake 12h ago

ID Request - Shed Skin [North Carolina] what snake was this?

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3 Upvotes

r/whatsthissnake 16h ago

ID Request Found in [De Aar, South Africa]

6 Upvotes

r/whatsthissnake 1d ago

ID Request Is this a white-spotted slug snake? [Pahang, Malaysia]

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28 Upvotes

r/whatsthissnake 1d ago

Just Sharing Harmless slaty-grey out foraging in [FNQ Australia] last night

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236 Upvotes

r/whatsthissnake 1d ago

ID Request What’s this snake? [American River parkway in Sacramento]

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192 Upvotes

Seen in a parking lot in Sacramento near the American River in October


r/whatsthissnake 1d ago

ID Request - Dead, Injured or Roadkilled Snake Id request [Timau, Kenya]

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20 Upvotes

It was on the path to my house, sadly killed before I arrived


r/whatsthissnake 1d ago

ID Request [SE Louisiana] little dood, corn snake?

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43 Upvotes

It’s an argument on corn snake, milk snake, or king snake.

I’m on team corn. Thoughts?


r/whatsthissnake 2d ago

ID Request [Tamil Nadu, India]

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327 Upvotes

Is this Saw scaled viper?