Talk:Pantherophis obsoletus

scientific name
Is it Elaphe obsoleta or Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta? -Ravedave 02:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The binomial is E. obsoleta. A third subspecies name is usually found in widespread species to designate geographic variants within the species. On Wikipedia, races are dealt with in the species articles as there is usually little different other than appearance and/or distribution Shyamal 02:32, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Elaphe obsoleta (rat snake) is the name of the species, which used to encompass a number of subspecies, such as Elaphe obsoleta spiloides (gray rat snake). In general, when the first new subspecies (race) is described for a species, a special subspecies name is created for the original description of the species; a name that repeats the species name. Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta (black rat snake) is an example of this, which can be referred to as the nominate subspecies, nominate form, nominate race, nominate or typical form.
 * In this case, according to the best taxonomy we have for snakes (available through ITIS), no subspecies are currently recognized for Elaphe obsoleta, which means that names like Elaphe obsoleta spiloides and Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta are both invalid. --Jwinius 11:45, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't Tread On Me
This is in response to the March 15, 2008 deletion by Jwinius of an external link less than four hours after it was posted (Wikipedians need to know about this kind of behavior): You removed a link in the black rat snake article, purportedly because it is "irrelevant" and because it describes 'a writer coming between a snake and its dinner.' Consisting of detailed observations of the snake, the linked article is anything but irrelevant. It's obvious, furthermore, that the true reason you deleted the link is that you don't like the idea of Homo sapiens making a choice to participate in a wild process. Believe it or not, this is how Homo sapiens operates. People are part of nature. Your deletion amounts to an imposition of personal preferences on other Wikipedia readers. Please restore the link. Wikipedia doesn't need police officers like you, who think they own articles to which they contribute. Though I'd be perfectly justified in restoring the link, I won't because your precipitous, irrational and imperious reaction suggests you'd like to play the restore/revert game, and I have better things to do. 69.177.95.31 (talk) 14:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


 * In my opinion, the story for which the link was added is more about one person's encounter with a snake and their attempt to come between it and a meal than it is about the natural history of this species. Here's the article: How to Save a Life. It would seem that the author does not approve of the way these snakes make a living. I therefore judged it irrelevant to the article and reverted the edit. --Jwinius (talk) 21:43, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jwinius. Regardless of content, it is a blog post, and they are not generally not accepted as External links. See EL for guidelines on external links. -Ravedave (talk) 14:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Black snake
Does the Eastern black rat snake travel around at night? Have found several in my yard that abuts the woods. I would not like to come upon one a night hanging from our trees. Leialni —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.242.27.207 (talk) 06:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * According to Mehrtens (1987), they are basically active during the day, but high summer temperatures may force them to become more active at night. Remember, though, that these animals are completely harmless. In contrast, dogs and cats frequently inflict much more serious bites upon people, and mosquitos, often being disease vectors in many countries including the United States, are potentially much more dangerous: every years millions of people die as a result of their bites. --Jwinius (talk) 11:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * They are harmless, nonpoisonous and should not be killed. However do not try to catch them because they will bite you multiple times and it hurts! They can make you bleed! But if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone.2602:306:BDA0:97A0:466D:57FF:FE90:AC45 (talk) 19:01, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Taxonomic issues
It seems to me that the elaphe/pantherophis argument should be deleted or given its own article, it's obviously based on an opinion and the faulty assumption that "biological species are most readily recognized by their ability to reproduce with each other" etc. In biology, it's not that simple. There are distinct species that are able to reproduce and produce fertile offspring. It is not the definition of a species, it's a rule of thumb, it's the short version that they teach in elementary school. For example, many of the currently 35 recognized species of garter snake will produce fertile hybrid offspring, BUT under natural conditions, they generally will not mate with other species of the same genus where their ranges overlap. To be blunt, the definition applies better to genera, than to species.

"most herpetologists do not accept the suggestion" - What is this claimed based on? Has there been a poll? It seems to me that this is strictly an opinion.

It seems to me that somebody just wanted to get a dissenting voice heard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.77.244.137 (talk) 07:15, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It may very well turn out that all North American rat snake species will eventually be moved to Pantherophis, but whether they are or not I think this alternative name should be mentioned here as long as it remains a popular alternative in the literature. However, my feeling is that this section needs to be cleaned up (severely abbreviated) and deal only with this species. After that, the rest of the article should finally be expanded. --Jwinius (talk) 08:49, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The stuff on mitochondrial DNA versus nuclear DNA is quite silly. I think that the whole section should be removed and only cited matter included. Not cited with flickr discussions of course. Shyamal (talk) 08:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You have no arguments there with me at all, so I went ahead and cleaned it all up. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 09:36, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Photo gallery
I removed the photo gallery from the article because it was making the article too "image heavy". Also, it was starting to look a lot like a blog for people wanting to share their black snake images. Most of them are now available via the Commons link at the bottom of the article. The images above were, unfortunately, uploaded directly to Wikipedia instead of Wikimedia Commons. --Jwinius (talk) 11:47, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The currently featured image is of a black racer, Coluber constrictor, eating a fence lizard. Someone fix it, pretty please, I'm new at this. - ADM 16 June 2014 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.68.59.166 (talk) 01:13, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Subspecies?
The article lead has a note that no subspecies of Elaphe obsoleta are currently recognized, with reference from ITIS. Wikipedia has, however, an article of Gray Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta spiloides), where it is listed as one of five subspecies of Elepha obsoleta. Should the Gray Rat Snake be merged into this article? MKFI (talk) 14:19, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The "gray rat snake" is now a separate species as Pantherophis spiloides. Lyttle-Wight (talk) 22:17, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Pantherophis vs. Elaphe
This section has been moved from the old talk page of Pantherophis obsoletus from before Talk:Elaphe obsoleta was moved here.

So, I've moved this species on wikipedia to Pantherophis. The page at Elaphe obsoleta indicated that Elaphe was to be preferred based on the listing of this species in the common names list of the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles; however, the SSAR list presently lists this species in Pantherophis. If wikipedia were to simply follow the SSAR list, we should also recognize the three segregate species (P. alleghaniensis, P. obsoletus, P. spiloides) as distinct, but I would not personally advocate doing so. If another editor disagrees, I would suggest that these new pages at least include an indication that this split may have some difficulties... Paalexan (talk) 20:42, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, OK, apparently someone else was doing the same thing at the same time... Anyways, if anyone would like to advocate maintaining Elaphe for this species, I think this would require, at minimum, a peer-reviewed source indicating that the several phylogenetic studies indicating that these are separate genera should be rejected for some reason. Paalexan (talk) 21:07, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I also notice that someone (identified by IP address only) has reinstated objections to listing this as Pantherophis. These objections (reference to an old SSAR list, rather than the current one; objection to mitochondrial-only studies when the most recent phylogeny by Pyron et al. includes substantial nuclear data) are no longer relevant. If they are to be mentioned at all, the fact that they have been superseded must also be mentioned! My suspicion is that this unknown editor has a preferred view of the situation that is not supported by recent investigations and is ignoring those recent results in the interest of furthering that personal viewpoint...Paalexan (talk) 19:02, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

NatureServe status
Please remove NatureServe status and replace with the more reputable IUCN status

Photograph is not of the target species
Hi, The photograph that heads this page is not of any Pantherophis, it's a racer, Coluber constrictor. I brought this to the attention of the author of the photograph, but they replied with a statement that it could not possibly be a racer because racers are not found where the photo was taken. This is nonsense because A) the photo is clearly Coluber constrictor and B) the range of the black ratsnake is nearly a subset of the range of the racer, especially in regions where fence lizards are also found.

Phylogenizer (talk) 01:20, 7 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Phylogenizer was right. The photo was of Coluber constrictor. The presence of a "presubocular" gave it away. I removed that photo in 2015. Lyttle-Wight (talk) 22:24, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Additionally, this article needs to be cleaned up. The currently recognized range is west of the Mississippi River - so why are we talking about North Carolina, Ontario and other individuals that are now recognized as distinct species? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phylogenizer (talk • contribs) 01:22, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

You guys need to stop editing this if you don't know what you're talking about
You fools have screwed this article way up. I'm done trying to help, but one last time:

Western ratsnakes are everything west of the Mississippi River. There are no subspecies recognized. The other nonsense about yellow rats and ratsnakes in the central part of the range you guys added is wrong. Those are different species. It has been outdated now since Burbrink, 2001. That's 13+ years. Time to get with the program. The main picture isn't even a ratsnake, and the followup pictures aren't even of this species of "black ratsnake".

If you really want these pages to be good, let experts do the editing. We have better things to do than spend our time rolling back your crappy edits that aren't even written in proper English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phylogenizer (talk • contribs) 15:33, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Pantherophis alleghaniensis a subspecies and synonym or a separate species?
Currently this article presents a mixed message. It does not list Pantherophis alleghaniensis as a synonym for Pantherophis obsoletus and uses the name Western Rat Snake as the common name. However it heavily sites the IUCN red list which DOES consider them to be synonyms and lists the range of both the Western and Eastern snakes as one. This needs to be corrected, either by fixing the range description of the species of by merging the two rat snakes into a single page which I suggest be title Black rat snake. Weebro55 (talk) 19:19, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Wrong photos
None of the five images for this WP article is correct. All are of specimens from outside the geographic range of P. obsoletus. They are images of P. spiloides or P. alleghaniensis. Perhaps someone could move them to the proper articles, and insert some new correct images here. Lyttle-Wight (talk) 01:49, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

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Geographic range?
The description of its geographic range contradicts other elements of the article. It is described as inhabiting central North America, west of the Mississippi River, yet several of the pictures on the article are of specimens in eastern states (PA and NC). Can someone clarify this? SquareWave (talk) 03:25, 25 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife lists them as native all across Kentucky, so “west of the Mississippi” only is definitely incorrect. 71.67.41.34 (talk) 15:29, 29 May 2024 (UTC)