I'm curious who else has noticed different subspecies requiring or even preferring different care and what those differences were.



A common example that most are aware of is that blacks and Andeans prefer cooler temps.



I currently have the following subspecies set up in a virtually identical manner... pueblans, andeans, blacks, stuart's, blanchard's, sinaloans, nelsons, and conant's... in plastic tubs with aspen bedding, tight humid hide with moist sphagnum, water dish, warm side of about 82 and cool side of about 70-73.



most of my animals are new or newish lines F1s and F2s and/or have line info and/or locality info. so they are basically pure examples of each subspecies and not mixed up mutts.



things I've noticed...

pueblans want no part of their humid hide... never in there. sorta makes sense as I understand they are from a very dry climate.



stuarts are always in their humid hide... they seem to like it wet.



sinaloans, nelsons, and conants are much more active than the others... always on the go and moving around day and night it seems.



Andeans and blacks obviously not wanting heat... never on the warm side even after a meal. in fact, I don't even have heat available to my adult blacks and plan to do the same when my young Andeans and blacks move up to bigger caging.



blanchards doesn't seem to ever hide. much more of a percher... just sits on top of the hide watching things all day.



black milks seem to like moving everything around the cage and piling it all up in a corner. not sure if maybe it's some sort of nesting/denning behavior or just a consequence of them pushing around.



conants and blanchards seem to be much more visual hunters/eaters. they like f/t mice dragged around and shaken about to really get into chasing and "killing". my male blanchards simply will not eat unless he gets to a. chase the mouse, b. strikes and bites the mouse in a way that the face of the mouse ends up in his mouth on the first bite, and c. I shake the mouse for 10 to 15 seconds after he wraps up.



anyone else have any observations of differences between subspecies?

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