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These snakes have yellow to orange or sometimes to average brown primary color. Head and neck are usually reddish brown to orange. The front body and the first third of the snake in some cases can be more or less white. The front body and the first third of the snake in some cases can be more or less white. The saddle markings in a row are clearly separated from each other. These are often faded in the neck and get clearer and darker towards the tail. But there are jani with black saddles in the neck, too. Then the spots fade in the middle of the body and become black towards the tail.
The genus deppei can be distinguished from colouring and from the number of saddle spots.
The mexican pine snake (d. deppei) has about 26-32 body markings. Other sources name as distinction of this subspecies more than 40 saddle spots including tail spots (Stull, 1932). All of the jani (99%) have therefore less than 40 body and tail markings (Stull, 1932). The belly is white to orange or to pale brown, the chin is leather coloured. There are a number of smaller, indistinct spots on the snakes side in the color of the saddle markings. Seldom exceed the length of nearly 2m. My adult snakes have 1,4m now. This snake is a little more slender than the ssp. d. deppei.
The scales are keeld. The Mexican species can be differenced of the northern Pituophis species by the number of the prefrontal scales: the melanoleucus/ruthveni/catenifer have 4 scales, the deppei, and the Mexican/Guatemalan species lineaticollis, only have 2 of these scales. The snout shield is av. as broad as high (Rostrale - Nasale 1:1).
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