2019 Minnesota Herping! Lots of pics!

[Faunaofthenorth]

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Here is an unfortunate casualty of the golf course I work at... this was a rather large female half albino that now seems to be more common up here. I contacted the DNR after finding this second one and they are very interested in these little white-bellied Redbelly snakes... I will post a pic soon of my litte male once he comes out of his little burrow.. I want to breed him to a gold phase Redbelly...

[Faunaofthenorth]

Thats very cool! Here in Indiana there's not many places to go herping. There's an old bike trail about 1/2 a mile from where I live, surrounded by miles of wooded area.
(I very rarely go there because of many homeless people in a set-up camp in the middle of the woods, and they're pretty sketchy)

Ah yeah... we have some meth-crazed homeless camp areas that I definitely avoid... things can be tough way up here lol
“Tin Flipping!”

[Eddie]

Looks like a normal northern brown snake to me

[Faunaofthenorth]

Looks like a normal northern brown snake to me

I am certain it is a redbelly snake. It has every trait that a Brown snake does not... three neck spots, two parallel gray margin stripes along the white venter... which is not present in brown snakes. Brown snakes do not live where I am at. They are only found at the bottom of the state and I am an hour and a half from Canada. These ones have a trait where they do not have pigment on their underside except for a little pink or orange here and there... The dead one in the picture was migrating next to another redbelly that was a dark red phase... they got hit and killed with a buffalo blower on the cart path that one of my coworkers was using.

[Faunaofthenorth]

Today I was at the MN reptile show and the DNR was there with the herpetological society and I showed them the redbellies and they confirmed that they are anerythristic redbelly snakes! I was wrong thinking they were albino but still really cool! They stated that they find them very rarely, but it seems there is a larger frequency of them where I live. They were interested if I can breed it successfully with the gold phase.

[Eddie]

Awesome.Good luck with the breeding project!!

[Faunaofthenorth]

Yeah dude thanks! Redbellies are often difficult to care for in captivity. They often get highly stressed and refuse food, luckily an experienced hognose breeder taught me some tricks and so far my gold phase female has eaten and same with my anerytheristic male... if they mate, hypothetically, I am still worried about getting the little tiny babies to eat.... even with tiny chopped up worms....
anyone have any redbelly husbandry tips??