Talk:Milk snake

Consensus on Outdated Taxonomy?

Has a consensus been made for this page regarding taxonomic changes? As far as I can determine, the 24-some subspecies are no longer valid, at least according to the Ruane, et all Species Delimitation study:https://academic.oup.com/sysbio/article/63/2/231/1644072

EricRoscoe2 (talk) 23:08, 05 March 2021 (UTC)

Origin of the Name

I own a Corn Snake and add this to the possible etymology of the name, Milk Snake. As noted, these snakes are often found around farms and thus an association with dairy barns and cattle has led to the term, somewhat as in "milk maid". I suspect a closer link as illustrated by this anecdote. I usually feed my snake by dangling its "prey" mouse down into the opened top of its cage. Once, during a cleaning, I inadvertently held one hand, fingers dangling, over the opening and my snake unerringly struck and hung onto the end of a finger. The snake's response immediately called to mind the deep appeal that a plentiful crop of dangling udders in a dairy barn or pasture would elicit in any snake of good size. If the snake happens to "chew" as it adjusts is jaws, so much more "evidence" for seeming to milk the cow. I hope someone has actually witnessed this behaviour which would lend more credence to the literal origin of the name at some point in the past. Jelly Catullus 17:45, 25 February 2007 (UTC)Jelly Catullus 03:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

recommend not to wikilink parts of the snake's names

linking a state name is kind of a low valley link anyhow, but especially distracting when it is part of a species name.TCO (talk) 08:29, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

A bit slow, but yeah, I've done that. And it wasn't just state names. I mean, red? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 14:02, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

thumbnail pics of sub-species

Please add gallery of thumbnail pics of sub-species.-71.174.183.90 (talk) 19:43, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Snake expert wanted...

Over on https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/List_of_domesticated_animals , there are several snakes listed, including this one. I recently did some edits (removing snakes that did not belong), and I would like someone to check and make sure I didn't screw things up (eg leave a picture referring to one of the snakes I deleted). Thanks. Tamtrible (talk) 19:01, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Principles of Biology 2

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 January 2024 and 3 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Anshita nandal (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Anshita nandal (talk) 22:33, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The lead is buried

There's no big section-title "Etymology". It was really difficult to find the reason it is named "milk snake". To know how to search for "'milk ' but not followed by 'snake'" I'd have had to paste this entire article into MS-Word, and re-learn stuff I forgot ten years ago.2600:1700:6759:B000:E894:BFCC:705D:880 (talk) 04:54, 27 August 2024 (UTC)Christopher Lawrence Simpson