I agree with you 100%.....I am not out to try and stop people from hybridizing. I just rather these breeders REPRESENT correctly. This is why I ONLY buy from people I know and trust. I had to gain lots of trust from the people who bought my snakes in the late 90s and earlier this decade.....I hope to retain or continue such trust.



And...I do believe a lot of our mexicana are generics and that selective propagation and line breeding has created many nicer looking mexicana than what you would find in the wild.



In the infancy of mexicana herp culture....Mexicana were certainly cross bred. I remember seeing L.m.m. labeled as Mexican Variable Kingsnakes-"Mexicana Phase." Breeders bred these "Mexicana Phase" variable kings to a "Leonis Phase" variable kings and so on and so forth......Thus came about the infamous "Mixicana" of the 1970s and 1980s. What did Gebhart, Vermilya, Sipery, Blodie, Cherry, Price, Applegate and Kardon breed? We do not really know, but we trust that they kept their sub species separate. And...We trust them as breeders and continue to purchase Mexicana from them or from their stock.



And...I dunno....after seeing some of Robert Hansen's field shots of thayeri I think there are some real nice ones in the wild that don't look so 'wild'.
-----
John Lassiter



"Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part....."

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