Joe,

I agree with you about animals not carrying the founders name after they leave our control. Knowing whom I have sold animals to in the past and then seeing them produce offspring that I know are from my bloodlines in pits, thayeri and the like is often amusing. But hey they are their animals now.

I also agree with you that there is still a major question in my mind (as feeble as it is) about there being more than one gene for black in the pure thayeri population.

I am not even sure of it being a standard simple recessive as we have bred several generations blacks to each other over the years and still had about the same random production as from other morphs. You would think that would increase the production of them if it were simple recessive without some type. It is quite possible at least in my mind that certain colors or combination thereof are masking the black and any time that color is present we do not see it. We have run into that in corns in different combination.

Also I can remember 15 years ago not being able to even give away thayeri and blacks were exceptionally hard to get rid of each year. And yes Randy, Frank, Alan and several other guys that I know of collected blacks from several different parts of the range, so they were not just from one locale.

As far as Frank is concerned he is quite the charactor, alot of times he likes to agitate the new folks in the hobby, just to see what they will say and/or do. But he does have a lot of experience and if you understand him, just take with a grain of salt some of the things he says from time to time just for effect. He is a blast to listen to and correspond with from where I come from anyway. LOL.

As far as producing blacks from wild caughts the most verifiable fact I can give you is the F1 laredo line animals we have have on several occasions have produced blacks for us. Each year we get 1 - 5 out of the pairs. The balance seem to be alot of really nice MSP, ground color leonis with very reduced black etc.

One other note I had a good friend that picked up a pair of "black thayeri kings" (as they were marked)from a guy in Orlando several years ago and he produced a clutch of 7 that were all solid black except for a tiny white spot on two of them right at the cloaca. He showed them to me and I swear they looked exactly like pure thayeri. Small head, typical body shape etc. He went back and really questioned the guy he got them from and they ended up being F3 crosses from Mexican blacks and thayeri. He froze the entire lot I understand after that at some point.

Anyway that is my take on it, as usual I stand to be corrected and taught someone new. But until then I will remain dumb and un-informed I guess. It sure makes it difficult when you think you know something and then have to start questioning everything all over again. LOL
Cherryville Farms

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