This beautiful snake is a juvenile KINGSVILLE TIGER BULL SNAKE (Pituophis catenifer sayi) which hatched on 30th July 2025 at a breeder friend's home in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex.
This partiuclar colour form of the bull snake, which in itself is a subspecies of the widespread North American gopher snake, originates from the prairies and semi-desert scrublands of the Kingsville area of Texas, USA.
The 'tiger' part of the snake's common name comes from the bands and blotches that form the snake's pattern, as well as the fact that their base colouration is yellow/orange and often becomes redder as they mature. This individual's skin is already absolutely beautiful as you can see here, so the idea of it possibly improving with age is very exciting!
All snakes have to regularly shed their skin, especially when they are growing rapidly as is the case with this young bull snake. Prior to shedding, a snake's appearance changes dramatically. This is caused by the secretion of fluid between the old and new skin, which serves as a lubricant to facilitate the skin shedding, and makes the snake's appearance significantly duller than usual:
Snakes have protective scales over their eyes, known as spectacles. During their pre-shedding time the presence of the milky lubricating fluid between the old and new spectacles makes their eyes look very unusually blue/grey in appearance, as you can clearly see here!
I am very much looking forward to seeing how this snake's colouration changes as it grows, as it is my very first time ever owning a bull snake in my 40+ years of keeping snakes!