One of, in fact probably my first experience with a snake as a child was a huge ornery black rat snake that showed up several times around the house I used to live in growing up at the southwestern tip of Ohio that was literally at the boarder of Indiana (I'm not exaggerating you drove 2 minutes and you crossed states). For some time now I've been trying to figure out just what exactly it was from a species standpoint, since "black rat snake" gives several leads.
Even when looking at official sources I'm getting multiple conflicting names. Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta/Pantherophis obsoletus (pretty sure those two names are the same thing), Pantherophis spiloides and Pantherophis alleghaniensis. I've even looked around on Morph Market but that hasn't been of much help either since, as I also learned, pretty much any of these snakes look drastically different as neonates/juveniles than as adults. They're more black/gray and white checkered that fades into a more uniform black with adulthood (though the original pattern can still be faintly visible) with a non-solid white underside. That and the fact that most listings are, well, morphs and not the wild type coloration doesn't help either.
Reconstructing what I could from memory, this is what the snake in question looked like to give a visual aid, which is credited as Pantherophis alleghaniensis.
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