Great Plains Rat Snake Pantherophis emoryi  (Baird & Girard, 1853)
An adult specimen from Ellis County, Kansas, compliments of Travis W. Taggart Image © Suzanne L. Collins, 2001
Taxonomic Comments:
Vaughan et al. (1996 Texas Journal of Science 48(3): 175-190) in their detailed study clearly demonstrated that the defined, diagnosed, allopatric population emoryi is a distinct species (see the map on page 185). Powell, Collins and Hooper (1998 A Key to the Amphibians and Reptiles of the Continental United States and Canada. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence. vi + 131 pp.) recognized this lineage as a species distinct from E. guttata. Fitch (1999 A Kansas Snake Community: Composition and Change over Fifty Years. Krieger Publishing Company, Malabar, Florida. xi + 165 pp.) in his monumental classic on herpetological ecology, recognized emoryi as a distinct species. Burbrink (2002 Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 25(3): 465-476) concluded that this taxon was a distinct species, corroborating a conclusion arrived at much earlier by Collins (1993. Amphibians and Reptiles in Kansas. Third Edition. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence. xx + 397 pp.). Burbrink & Lawson (2007 Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 43: 173-189), using DNA evidence, placed this species in the genus Pituophis. Collins, Joseph T. & Travis W. Taggart (2008. An alternative classification of the New World Rat Snakes (genus Pantherophis [Reptilia: Squamata: Colubridae]). Journal of Kansas Herpetology 26: 16-18) retained the generic name Pantherophis for this species. Standard common name remains Great Plains Rat Snake. Frank T. Burbrink (2002 Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 25(3): 465-476) concluded that the subspecies, Pantherophis emoryi meahllmorum did not deserve recognition. Collins & Taggart (2009 Standard Common and Current Scientific Names for North American Amphibians, Turtles, Reptiles, and Crocodilians. Sixth Edition) submitted for consideration the proposal by Burbrink (2002 op. cit.) to a snake systematist group composed of Frank T. Burbrink, Jeff Camper, Michael Douglas, Harry W. Greene, Toby Hibbitts, Robin Lawson, James R. McCranie, Brice P. Noonan, Christopher L. Parkinson, Theodora Pinou, R. Alexander Pyron, Javier A. Rodriguez-Robles, and Van Wallach, and a majority of those responding agreed.