I ask that question from time to time. “Uh, because it’s Regina?” I never liked that answer.  If ‘Queen Snake’ springs from Regina, the name of its genus,  then where does Regina come from?  If it’s the other way ’round, then who is responsible?  Sorting this out has been less than satisfying, very confusing, and frustrating to some degree. It looks as if the Queen Snake first enters the taxonomy without her fancy name.  Thomas Say described Coluber septemvittatus in 1825, describing it as “brownish, with three blackish lines; beneath yellow, with four blackish lines…” Say provides no common names, but handles mentioned in other writings include ‘seven-lined snake’, ‘leather snake’, ‘willow snake’, and ‘moon snake’ (that last one is pretty cool).   From…