Adult. Most hobbyists are unaware of the existence of dark bairdi. In the eastern range they make up roughly about  5% of those encountered in the wild. Some can be very dark. In the late 90's one of these, a 48" male, was encountered at the base of a rock cut. He was a very dark gray with ample red breaking through the scales like lava flowing through cracks in black rock. The snake pictured above goes through periods being fairly dark and then will lighten up to a medium gray at other times. The red appears to be a deeper tone on the darker specimens and more pinkish on the lighter specimens. The metallic quality of the gray is significantly reduced on the darker animals .