Over his 35 years at Northwestern State University Williams authored or co-authored 147 professional publications Together with
Hobart Muir Smith, he discovered in
Mexico a new snake species in the
genus Geophis. They also identified the
southeastern canyon lizard subspecies of the
canyon lizard in 1960. In 1966 he co-discovered the
Texas scarlet snake. In 1968 he identified
Aspidoscelis inornatus paululus, a subspecies of the
little striped whiptail. He is also credited with the identification of the following milk snake subspecies in 1978:
Andean Milksnake,
Conant's milk snake,
Honduran milk snake,
Sinaloan milk snake,
Smith's milk snake, and
Stuart's milk snake. Williams concluded from his research that
Lampropeltis triangulum temporalis is intermediate between the
scarlet kingsnake and the
eastern milk snake, and therefore that these so-called Coastal Plains phase milk snakes are
intergrades and thus not a proper scientific designation. In 2000, the subspecies
Sceloporus merriami williamsi, a taxonomic
patronym, was named to honor Kenneth L. Williams for being a specialist in snake classification and the herpetology of
Honduras and Mexico. ==References==