WOW!

Thank you, to everyone who's contributed to this thread. I know I'm late to the party, so a bit of background: I now have 4 couperi, all from the same very well known breeder. 2 are from '12, 2 from '13 - the '12's are red throat, the '13s pure black.

These are my only snakes; but please don't think that's lack of experience - I've had (many thousands of) snakes since the late '60's, and owned and bred WC couperi many decades ago. Then I lived in Hawaii for many years, hence no snakes....

(I recognize a couple of the names of the guys on this thread)

To the point, though:
Of my 4 snakes, only the eldest male has any divided scutes. Interestingly, his '12 female counterpart has some centralized black spotting on the anterior scutes, which hint at the divisions on the male. Neither of the all-blacks have divisions. All snakes are from the same breeder (Yes, you know whom),

I don't like "morphs" and inbreeding for weirdness. I do love couperi, more than any other serpent, from Dendroaspis to Diadophis.

I would question whether perhaps mating some all-blacks to some red-throats might just help with breaking up the inbreeding forced upon us by the limited legal stock?

I'm also a member of Orianne; maybe a petition from them, and a group of legal breeders, might convince USFWS to allow a gene trade with a WC population? While I understand and appreciate the point made about overriding a million years of separation, might that not be a way to trade some valuable genetics?

Just trying to restart valuable conversation; please don't anyone get mad....

Chris Powell

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