Posted by:
ratsnakehaven
at Sun Dec 27 08:50:31 2009 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by ratsnakehaven ]
>>Hey Terry
>>
>>Interesting post - I'd like to comment on the bluish phase. About twenty of so years ago, when mostly WC was all that was available, a shipment arrived in the UK that contained a large group of the blue background bimacs, they were a lot cleaner looking than the one in your photo without the dark centers to the scales and had cherry red markings (blotched with no dark striping and mostly dumbbell shaped blotches). The importer told me they were from the Jiangxi province, how true this is, I don't know. These were very popular at the time and for several years whilst bimacs were in favour, and were the main colour available over here. As the 'morph' era ascended on the hobby, they sadly were one of the species that got forgotten and its now near on impossible to obtain any CB bimacs here. I saw a large import of bimacs a few years back and none of them were of the bluish phase. most were pretty generic blotched striped. Last year there were some imported into Europe and some of our friends invested in them, of the photos I saw most were of the blotched variety and had some nicely coloured bold blotches with clean backgrounds, but no locality details. I was really taken with one pair and invested in some of the babies produced from them this year.
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>>Couple of pix of my babies - looking very dull in there juvenile colouration which hopefully will lighten up as they mature.
>>
>>It would be great to have specific locality lines of Bimacs available in the hobby, and identify unique characteristics in them, like we have with the Diones. The Blues and Blondes are real pretty. But I can't see it happening unless someone collects and exports themselves. But I guess what we could do is line breed for unique characteristics ? The 75% blondes that Toby has, show some of the colouration of the blonde in the background - be interesting to see what the babies of this pair look like, whether any of them have the bleached look of the original.
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>>Slightly off topic - but talking about colouration - I have heard mention that males tend to be more colourful than males - is this an observation that you or anyone else could confirm within the clutches that you've hatched over the years ?
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>>one more thing then I'll stop with the rabbit - on the striped bimacs, I believe there is actually a genetic (simple recessive) stripe in captivity in a private breeders collection in europe - quite different to the wild stripe phase.
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>>Happy New year to one and all - Sue xxx
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>>Junglezone - Webdesign
Hi, Sue.
Thanks very much for your nice response and interest in bimaculata. This is one of my favorite all-time species to work with. Now to follow up on some of your observations/questions.
Part of my original stock of bimaculata from the late 90's was from the late Lloyd Lemke, a pioneer. Unfortunately, he didn't have very many bimacs, and I was just discovering them as they were fading already in popularity. One of the females was the bluish phase and one female was the blonde phase. I also received several females and males of the brownish phase from him. I never saw another bluish phase bimac for sale and I've only seen one other blonde phase and was unable to obtain it.
With the snakes I did have I tried to breed them, but here's what happened. The blue female only produced one small clutch before I lost her. The babies were rather ugly, since she had crossed with a brown phase male. The blonde female was very hardy and produced several clutches before getting too old. One of her male babies I bred back to her to get the 75% clutch, of which several went to Toby. But I was never able to find a pure blonde male to breed to her to produce a pure line. The blonde trait proved to be just a color phase and not a recessive gene.
From what I can tell of the bimacs available today, they are all generic and variations of the brown phase. I believe the brown phase is the most dominant in the wild, but the other phases seem to have places where they are common. You mentioned Jiangxi and that might be one of them, since many blue phase seem to have come from there. Then again that could be just the shipping location. I also have some ideas about locations, for the blonde phase, for instance, or just locations that seem like they would be good to nurture a certain look.
I'm with you in thinking we'll never get the "locality" info we desire unless we collect the snakes ourselves, which is not likely; but we can line breed a color phase, if we can obtain original stock. Therefore, we have to watch for imports, and I haven't seen any here in the states for a long time.
The look of the blondes when crossed with more common types is somewhat lost, but it does help lighten the color of the type it is crossed with. I'm experimenting with that right now and also with the pattern of the snakes, selecting for the dumbell-shaped blotches with a more symetrical pattern. I'm looking for a snake with a light ground color and bright reddish-brown blotches without too many broken ones. One problem the blonde phase produced was the striping. Some of the babies have developed well defined stripes in the back half of the snake, which includes one of my breeders. However, the lines I'm using to cross with don't have any stripes which helps. I'm raising some of the babies of two crosses at this time.
As for the striped bimacs..I did have a stiped phase early on with obtaining stock. I didn't like the striped phase morph very much, not only for the looks, but because I thought their temperament was different, unfavorable, and they tended to be darker. I decided not to work with them. I do believe a striped bimac could be selected for, however, as well as found in the wild, and an all-stripe line produced. I don't believe this would improve the popularity of the species in the U. S. though. I would love to find an albino or other mutation to help with that. If there is a European striped form, I would be happy to give it a try to see what its behavior is like. If it is a recessive trait, that would be nice.
Thanks for the pics of your babies. All the babies I've produced have been very dark at birth. They tend to lighten up fairly quickly. Maybe I'll find some more pics later to add. Like I said earlier, I'm selecting for the lighter background color too. Your babies look very nice. They should turn out to be good looking adults.
On the question of whether females or males are more colorful I'm not sure I can give a good answer. I haven't seen much difference in any of the babies I've produced, although one female baby from the blonde female was very light colored. This one was pictured along with the blonde female above. Of my original stock, all the best colors were with the females, and in my early breedings I was forced to use a dark colored male, as he was the only one available. If I had had a nice male I would have gotten much nicer offspring from the bluish female and would probably still be working with that line. As of now all my stock is generic, except that I've been selecting for certain characteristics for several generations. I'm always looking for new unrelated stock and other breeders of bimaculata.
Hope you keep up your work with this species, Sue. Stay in touch and maybe someday we can make some exchanges. Hope your new year will be very favorable and give you lots of babies (snakes that is...haha!)
Terry
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RE: Elaphe bimaculata..notes on localities.. - ratsnakehaven, Sun Dec 27 08:50:31 2009