ORIGINAL: WNY Bowhunter
From what I understand...the black rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta) and the corn snake (Elaphe guttata) are not in fact the same species, although both species are found in the genus Elaphe. There are a bunch of rat snakes that are just subspecies of one another though like the black, gray, yellow, everglades rat snakes. I used to have to take care of corn snakes and a yellow and black rat snake for a herpatology class that I took at college.
OK WNY Bowhunter, you're right. These are in the same Genus rather than species. There are actualy around 32 old world species of rat snakes in the genus Elaphe and about 8 new world species in the genus elaphe. There are also three other rat snakes that fall into two other genus' senticolis (green rat snake) and Bogertophis ( baja and trans-pecos rat snakes). Out of the Texas rat, Black rat, yellow rat, everglades rat, gray rat and cornsnake, the cornsnake is the only one that falls in a gifferent species. All the rest fall within the species obsoleta but in different sub-species. I apologize for saying species instead of genus but in my years of owning, breeding and selling nothing but corn snakes, rat snakes and milk snakes we just called them all by their common names and didn't get too nitpicky about latin names, thanks for the correction.
