The link you shared in your first post...who told you that's a "grey" rat snake? (I'm not asking literally 'who' but do they have the expertise to actually know? & if so, did you ask them HOW they can be so sure?) Sometimes people go by the range where they're found- but that can be deceiving; snakes can hitch rides in shipments of goods (they sometimes show up in plant nurseries & places like Walmart) or they might have been captive for a while & later released or escaped outside their range.
Yours (in above post #6) looks like a black rat snake to me also. (& well-fed too, as are my Florida rat snakes- my males are 7 footers & I've never been tagged by them* & plan to keep in that way- they're docile enough about handling- just a lot to hang onto- they're about 13 years old now, so I'm wondering "how much bigger-?" LOL) Anyway, I don't think the gray snout on yours means anything one way or the other? Snakes are not all identical even in the same species. (*these rat snakes are mostly nippy when they're young- their panic is a natural response to handling by a presumed predator- & most of them learn to relax.)
And again, I'm not a professional scientist-herpetologist- you might pose this question to them if you can find one? I know in my state, there is just one working for the Fish & Game Dept. for the whole state. I think they'd have to know how to officially tell them apart, since it's the scientific community that keeps reclassifying these rat snakes, lol, & sometimes with snakes it comes down to obscure things like counting scale rows.
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