NATURAL HISTORY

West Mexican tricolored Lampropeltis range from the grasslands in the north of Sinaloa to the valleys of Oaxaca in the south and border all along the Western Sierra Madre Occidental and Eje Neovolcanico Mountain ranges.  In the south there are naturally occurring intergrade regions with larger and heavier bodied Central American milksnakes (hobby Honduran milksnakes sometimes exceed six feet).  However, it is not very common for West Mexican tricolors to regularly exceed four feet. 

As a group, West Mexican tricolored Lampropeltis are among the easiest to care for and some of most popular snakes currently kept by reptile enthusiasts.  They are typically mid-sized snakes, and though some adults may top out at around 4 ft (122 cm) long most are between 36-42 inches.  Hatchlings are small, slender, very active, and regularly take pinky mice for their first meal.  Their heads are typically black, with varying amounts of light colored flecking on the snout. 

While the relationships among milksnakes are poorly understood, the closest related grouping (clade) of West Mexican Lampropeltis is comprised of L.t. sinaloae in the northwest - L. t. nelsoni on the central coast - L. t. arcifera central inland - with L. t. conanti on the southern coast - L.t. campbelli on the southern Oaxacan plateau - along with  L.t. polyzona intergrades in the southern Mexican states and bordering with allies L. ruthveni in the Eje Neovolcanico and L. greeri on the southern Sierra Madre Occidental.

Patterns vary over their range, although typically they have lower red body ring counts (RBR) in lower coastal elevations [<12] and higher RBR counts in higher elevations [>25].  Although this is mainly academic nowadays, seeing that there have not been new bloodlines introduced into the US for over twenty years and the ones that are currently available are generally a mixing of the below subspecies: