I took this guy away from the dogs this morning. I’m 99% sure it is a coral snake but was wondering if it could be a lookalike, or if anyone could narrow it down further to a specific genus based on the coloration, size and location.
The color banding matches the old rhyme ‘red on yellow kills a fellow’ but the red bands are very wide (4 inches or so) compared to the black which are about 1/2 inch. At the tail end of the snake the last 6" or so are all yellow on black (you’re alright, Jack? - I bet a lot of people have died trying to remember that damned rhyme) - with no red at all.
Almost every photo I can find of N. American Coral snakes have about equal sized red and black bands, and continue to have red against yellow all the way to the tail.
He was in the rainforest of Quintana Roo, Mexico and is a little over 3’ long.
That’s a coral snake. And wow, what a beauty. There can be a lot of variation in pattern from region to region. Google king snake, the take a look at the California king snake.
That rhyme ONLY works infallibly in the United States. Do not trust it anywhere else. There are over 50 species of coral snake in the New World. And in this particular case, what you appear to have ( based on locale ) is the highly variable Variable Coral Snake ( subspecies alienus ), which is not a species that occurs in the United States.
They look similar, but the distribution is wrong. They get close, but don’t seem to enter the Yucatan - M. diastema alienus should be the only coral snake in that particular area. But beyond that also note that M. browni usually have all-black snouts, while M. diastema usually has a pale spot on the snout as in Crazyhorse’s photo.
The plate of M. diastema alienus in Campbell and Lamar’s The Venomous Reptiles of Latin America is cited to Quintana Roo and it’s pretty dead-on. Online, I found these shots of some idiot and his pet -Pic #1, Pic #2 ( By the way please never handle a coral snake like that folks. Yeah, they’re typically inoffensive, but all it takes is one bad mistake to ruin your day/life ).
Definitely M. diastema alienus- the common name “Yucateca” coral snake would have been a dead giveaway, but I didn’t know it until I searched for the proper name.
Thanks for the quick ID. I’m glad both dogs are alive and well considering how venomous it is. But sorry such a beautiful snake wound up in a disagreement with them. For all I know they might have found him already dead, which could explain their good luck.
