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Posted by chrish on January 20, 2003 at 22:23:05:
In Reply to: Spilotes? Cribo? Need Education... posted by GregH on January 20, 2003 at 17:59:35:
One of the common names is a "Tiger Rat" correct?
Correct. The most widely used name for this species is Tiger Ratsnake in the US. They are also sometimes called "Chicken Snakes" but that name is applied to other species as well. I have seen them called Tiger Tree Snake to avoid confusion with the Rat Snakes in the genus Elaphe, but generally most people seem to be able to figure out was a Tiger Ratsnake is.
Some questions I have are: Are spilotes in the same family as the Dry's?
Yes, they are both colubrids.
Where did the common name "Cribo" come from? Are Cribos the same as Spilotes?
I believe Cribo is a central American name for any big rat snakes, although it is a colloquial name, not some official name. Generally, when people in the hobby talk about cribos, they are referring to Drymarchon sp. from central and south america (as well as southern Mexico). www.indigosnakes.com has a list of common names associated with the genus Drymarchon.
BTW - since you are trying to learn, you might as well learn it right - the correct way to write a scientific name is to capitalize the first word (the genus) and NOT capitalize the second word (the specific epithet). Technically they should be italicized or underlined as well. Of course, on these KS.com forums, those rules are broken almost continually!
So the Tiger Ratsnake is technically Spilotes pullatus or Spilotes pullatus. At least you can say you saw it written correctly once on one of these forums!
