Posted by:
FR
at Sat Feb 14 12:12:57 2009 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by FR ]
As one of the pioneers with thayeri, both in captivity and in nature. I would like to say this.
Your first picture is a borderline milksnake morph. But yes, milksnake. Your second picture is what we called Thayeri. That is a normal typical thayeri in patter. Which is red/orange bands, bordered by black, and tapering or becoming absent on the sides.
The big question now is, what is a leonis. Baically, a leonis was an alterna type thayeri. Lacking red, incomplete bands, spotting on the neck, reduction in head patterm. I have a picture of the the second leonis known. I will have to dig it up.
Most these days call anything with narrow bands a leonis, as in thin banded. Well, thats not what they originally were. And yes, its only names. But all these names have origins and reasons for their origins.
When collecting Thayeri, the vast majority were normal thayeri, like your second pic, with a brown or grey base color.
ALso, like what happened to alterna, which were once thought to be different species, I collected a gravid milksnake morph, that produced both leonis and milksnake phases. This happened with alterna, a U of A biologist captured a gravid Alterna on 163 and it produced both alternas and blairi morphs. That was published and alterna was sunk as a subspecies.
I actually met that fella and saw the snakes.
While doing field work with L.m.thayeri, we found that most of the individuals actually keyed out to be L.m.mexicana. Only with different colors. These animals were keyed out by U of A biologists at the time.
Anyway, we all know there a maze of thayeri patterns, but they started with the two extremes, milksnake(blairi) leonis(alterna) and the most common in the field, normal thayeri. Of course, I was the first to find and produce Black thayeri. BUt as far as I know, that was the only one ever found. I produced blacks from that animal, and Bill Garska, produced some from normals found in the exact same spot. Cheers
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RE: The studs for the Flowers line thayeri - FR, Sat Feb 14 12:12:57 2009