So I found a wild prarie king snake in Leavenworth county, Kansas, today, only it was a DOR!(dead on road) From what wasn't mangled, he was absolutely gorgeous before he had the run in with the vehicle that did him in. Here are some pictures of live ones: Gorgeous snakes. I also, about 200 meters from this guy, found a recently hit Common Garter Snake that was Still alive. I did the unpleasant job of breaking his neck to put him out of his misery. Here is a picture of one, however the one that I found I think could be called hypermelanistic, as there was barely any red on the sides at all. I was still able to make a positive indentification by the keeled scales and the stripes on the side being on the 2nd and 3rd row of scales up from the belly scales. Also, there were the telltale black spots along the edge of the belly. So it was nice toobserve some wild specimens but it REALLY SUCKED that they were both killed by vehicles. I didn't try to sex the garter snake but the kingsnake had one of his hemipenes everted from getting ran over so he was a male for sure! At least, on the bright side, there will be no fewer babies next summer due to that particular incident! Ok, I'm strange... so sue me!
