It's cold here in Montana, so maybe I'm just grumpy. Or maybe the forum is too quiet and we haven't had a good Interweb Octogon battle in a while. Whatever the case, I've gotta vent. I seem to be seeing more and more mis-labeling these days. I know crossing subspecies and hybridization is rampant, but when I see things like this Bad Snake it makes me want to scream. To anyone who thinks that labeling their hybrids correctly and honestly will keep them from tainting the unadulterated bloodlines, a cursory look through the classifieds of any herp website should be evidence enough that this is not the case. How does this happen? Some of it, yes, is intentional. A lot of it, perhaps. But I suspect a growing portion of the criss-cross animals that are mis-labeled are due to hobbyists acquiring already crossed or hybridized stock for their breeding projects. They may not even be aware that their animals have "foreign" genes in them, due to the changing of hands

I guess my frustration has led me to ask my fellow milkheads this question: What can we do about it? How do we approach situations like this? I personally make note of persons and businesses with suspect histories to make sure I never acquire animals from them, but is that enough? Is it best to approach them about their mis-labeled animals? If so, do you go about it nicely, or hammer them to get your point across? I've tried the "nice guy" approach in the past, only to be verbally back-handed by the seller. What's our collective stand? Do we have a "united front", so to speak? Do we make a Trusted Breeder's page like has been done for alterna and the mexicana-complex Lampros? Or do we do nothing an just take take note? I'm terribly concerned about this today (for some reason), so approaching the forum dudes seems like a good idea. Maybe I'm just over-reacting. Please share your thoughts.

/end rant

Here's a Lampropeltis triangulum multistrata from Thomas County, Nebraska stock

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-Cole

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