I took this from Gary Nafis' Californiaherps.com, since he can explain it better than me:
"The easiest way to differentiate the two species in the field is to look at the caudal scales and the tail length. (Caudal scales are the scales on the tail behind the cloaca.) C. longicaudae has a longer tail with more caudal scales than C. tenuis. C. longicaudae has from 43 to 58 caudal scales, while C. tenuis has from 24 - 43. The tail of C. longicaudae averages 20 percent of the total length of the snake. The tail of C. tenuis averages 14.5 percent of the total length.
C. longicaudae has narrow black crossbars marking the anterior portion of the ventral scutes, covering only 1/3 to 1/4 of each ventral. The cross bands on C. tenuis are thicker, covering 1/2 to 1/3 of each ventral."
The range maps also help, as the two snakes are rarely sympatric. C. longicaudae tends to prefer damper, more treeish places than C. tenuis.
The data quality assessment is a summary of an observation's accuracy. All
observations start as "casual" grade, and achieve
"research" grade when
the iNat community agrees with the observer's ID, where an "agreeing"
identification is one that matches exactly or is of a child taxon of the
observer's ID. For example, if Scott says it's a mammal and Ken-ichi
says it's Homo sapiens, then Ken-ichi agrees with Scott.
the observation has a date
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the observation has a photo
Observations will revert to "casual" grade if the above conditions aren't met or
the community agrees the location doesn't looks accurate (e.g. monkeys in the middle of the ocean, hippos in office buildings, etc.)
the community agrees the organism isn't wild/naturalized (e.g. captive or cultivated by humans or intelligent space aliens)
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Comments & Identifications
How do you dertermine between Contia t. and Contia t. l. ?
I took this from Gary Nafis' Californiaherps.com, since he can explain it better than me:
"The easiest way to differentiate the two species in the field is to look at the caudal scales and the tail length. (Caudal scales are the scales on the tail behind the cloaca.) C. longicaudae has a longer tail with more caudal scales than C. tenuis. C. longicaudae has from 43 to 58 caudal scales, while C. tenuis has from 24 - 43. The tail of C. longicaudae averages 20 percent of the total length of the snake. The tail of C. tenuis averages 14.5 percent of the total length.
C. longicaudae has narrow black crossbars marking the anterior portion of the ventral scutes, covering only 1/3 to 1/4 of each ventral. The cross bands on C. tenuis are thicker, covering 1/2 to 1/3 of each ventral."
The range maps also help, as the two snakes are rarely sympatric. C. longicaudae tends to prefer damper, more treeish places than C. tenuis.
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