Posted by:
Aaron
at Fri Dec 1 00:57:14 2006 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Aaron ]
Form what I can see in the picture the snake you showed is a classic L. m. "greeri". The classic greeri meets this discription:
Dorsal Simple black mark on the head. Large black bordered, pale centered red "omega" shaped nuchal blotch; followed by a few increasingly smaller black bordered red diamonds; followed by a few narrower black blotches lacking red; followed by increasingly larger black bordered red diamonds again. Towards the last 1/3rd of the body the black bordered red diamonds tend to develop light centers. Greenish-gray backround color.
Ventral Front 1/4 white with a broken black stripe. After the first 1/4 the black borders of the red dorsal blotches become continuos so as to from complete or near complete black rings on the underside. Between the black rings there are black blotches and/or broken stripes.
Aside from this classic description there are some variations such as narrow black dorsal blotches lacking red randomly occuring on the body rather than just in the sequence described above. Sometimes the hollow centered red blotches occur in random sequence as well. Occasional specimens may also have red in every dorsal blotch or occasionally almost all of the dorsal blotches will lack red.
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L. m. "thayeri" are alot harder to describe. They come in three basic phases and are alot more variable than greeri. The basic phases are leonis, milksnake and melanistic.
Leonis essentially has narrow black bordered red bars on a gray, greenish gray, buckskin, yellowish or orangish backround. The narrow bars can also sometimes lack red, have pale centers, be split longitudinally so as to form two parallel spots or be constricted in the middle so as to form "butterfly" shapes. Sometimes there are black spots on the sides alternating between the narrow bars. The head pattern is extremely variable but often there is red blotching and it's usually more complex than in greeri.
Milksnake phase has wide red, narrow black and narrow pale rings in the same sequence as a L. triangulum (red-black-pale-black-red). The pale rings can be white, gray, buckskin, yellowish or orangish. The head pattern is just as variable as in the leonis phase or sometimes solid black.
Melanistic phase is all black.
In addition there are specimens intermediate in appearance between the leonis and milksnake phases. Often the intermediate specimens have squarish pale-centered, black bordered red blotches rather than narrow bars or wide rings.
Thayeri are so variable it is often impossible to tell if they have been crossed in captivity. Also most captive lines have focused on brightening the red and intensifying the orange.
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