>>The first hypo was produced by a couple tangerine dreams.The dreams where produced by a male snake purchased in a pet store for $15.00 labled a coral snake by Bill Love.Bill said he knew it wasn't a coral and he purchased it just for fun.He said it looked liked a honduran and or abnorma and he then went and purchased a couple w/c females (again with NO locale data) out of a huge barrell that had the same type of "look".



I COULDN'T FIND ANY MENTION IN MY NOTES OF BILL LOVE THINKING THE ORIGINAL "TANGERINE DREAM" WAS ANYTHING BUT A HONDURAN. SO I WROTE HIM AND ASKED. HE AND KATHY ARE ON A "BUSINESS VACATION" IN ARIZONA RIGHT NOW BUT HE TOOK TIME TO SEND THIS REPLY:



"The story is "drifting" a little, kinda like that old game of telephone, eh?



"Kathy and I bought the original 'Tangerine Dream' L. t. hondurensis for $25 from Aurora Castellanos (her Honduran import business was called Viva Animales, in Miami) around 1986. It was under deep shavings in a small aquarium in her narrow venomous herp room in her shop (which I sked to see because I was interested in eyelash vipers). She was convinced it was a coral snake. She said they came in as extra 'junk' that she really didn't want, and was probably tickled to 'ream' me for that much to be rid of it. I knew instantly that it was a Honduran milk; that was the only thing I ever thought it was. After we hooked it out of the cage (because it was 'venomous') and bagged it, we moved past her hot room to look at other herps she imported from family members in Honduras. That's when my companion -- renowned herp artist Marty Capron of Kansas -- asked if the 'coral' I bought was what he suspected it really was, and I replied 'yes'. Marty immediately said "I wonder if there are any more of them hiding under the shavings in th cage". I was so excited to get the one I saw tucked behind the water bowl that I never checked for others in the cage. Marty uncovered one more milk - a tricolor phase baby L.t. hondurensis, which he bought for $25 also. Aurora definitely didn't recognize juvenile milks for what they really were, but since she paid for corals, she made the proper mark-up on them, and I didn't feel bad that I ripped her off.



"We eventually bred it to other hondurensis that we got from Viva Animales and other importers who were getting hondurensis in in quantity at the time. We chose the most attractive females we could find. Aurora imported only from Honduras, but I suppose it's possible even her imports (or those of numerous others) could have come from broad areas that included other races of L. triangulum."

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