Posted by:
DMong
at Sun Oct 10 16:01:00 2010 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by DMong ]
"How common are pure amelanistic everglades rats?"
Well, since you asked this very specific question, I would like to give you a very honest answer.
There are indeed amelanistic(albino) genuine YELLOW Ratsnakes, and hypomelanistic genuine EVERGLADES Ratsnakes, as well as many other types of ratsnake morphs in the hobby, but in these times where EVERYONE seems to be breeding almost anything anymore, it is HIGHLY doubtful that those do not have a percentage of Yellow Rat influence in their genetic lineage from which this amel gene was derived. Thus them now being amelanistic.
Now of course you see amel "Everglades" Rats listed for sale from time to time, but as to them not having gotten the amel gene from the Yellow ratsnake is extremely unlikely at the present time. It is like so many other types of snakes in the hobby that get a certain trait introduced into them from something totally different because of someone's breeding project.
Even many wild-caught animals are called Everglades quite often, and these two variants breed very freely in parts of their natural range too, especially lately since the Everglades natural range is continually being drained and built upon.
And yes, even though many are very substancially orange-colored, these snakes can easily still be intergrade crosses. These are seen all the time too. There are many wild Yellows far from rossalleni range that can display substantial degrees of orange in their color scheme.
The bottom line is, I am not so sure a pure form of Everglades exists, but rather it is a product from being crossed with amel Yellows, then back bred to produce more orange phenotype snakes. Of course the more successive generations it has been outcrossed to more rossalleni, the more orange/red they will become.
Now I can't honestly say there absolutely cannot be any such thing as an amel Everglades, but I have never heard of any in my 43 years of snake experience.
It would be even more convincing if your friend can tell us exactly how he "knows" for a fact these can be traced to "pure" Everglades stock though, because I find it very, very questionable myself. Now those are certainly nice looking snakes, and my intent here certainly isn't to discredit anything about the way they look, but rather offer some reality of exactly how the dynamics of todays herp hobby seems to work now.
I would like to know just how this person is so certain these are 100% Everglades with absolutely no amel Yellow gene-flow?
BTW, could you take a crisp, clear photo of the color of the tongue on one, or even a few of the normal looking het amel animals?
best regards, ~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing" 
my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com
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RE: Amel Everglades - DMong, Sun Oct 10 16:01:00 2010
