I have only been to west Texas three times this year on the great alterna run, and have gleaned this from personal observation at both night and day reconnaissance of the areas I hunted;

Lizards and the small mice that inhabit the cuts and the surrounding boulder fields are the preferred food for alterna

Most subocs, bairdi's, alterna, and celaenops actually live in the higher boulder fields than in the cuts themselves(personal opinion)

Most prey items live around the cuts(personal observation)

Most of these snakes travel to the cuts to get the prey items from the cuts and travel back to the "homestead"

Since you used Greeri as the example and I have none and cannot study the habitat, I fall back on my limited knowledge of graybands. A wise man told me to thoroughly search the tops of the cuts as much as the cuts themselves, but didn't offer an explanation. I'm glad he didn't, as it gave me the incentive to explore the possibilities. The huge suboc I found was crawling near the top of a 40' tall cut on his way up at 6:00 a.m. I went up to the top and caught him, and when the sun came up I explored the top. What I found was two 2" dimeter holes on top of the cliff that I believe lead into an accessible labyrinth that was probably this guys home, but most importantly were the two Cnemidophoris (g. gularis or tesselatus complex)I found prowling the cacti at the edge of the top of the cut. Long story short, I believe these kings (most kings) get what is available to them for their first meal, and what that most likely is would be a native lizard, as they are asleep when these snakes hunt. I know my w.c. mex milk will thrash a Texas whiptail over a mouse any day, but will somewhat reluctantly take a rat pup over a mouse. Not picky, just going for a preference. I would take venison over black Angus, and fried speckled trout over catfish, if given the choice, but will eat them all. If given a choice, i wonder what our captives would choose. I understand we all can't do this, but it is an interesting experiment. I know, parasites, injuries due to live feeding, blah, blah, blah, but these guys survive in the wild to produce so maybe...????. I have seen and caught many snakes that were extremely parasitized, but think it may be more to them living in a nonoptimum environment, as they can't kick the diseases naturally.anyway that's my $50 worth. I will feed what they prefer if w.c. and feed live mice and rats to captive born. Sorry so long, computer was down a week, so you get the full vent! LOL! Frank, how many animals did you find in the wild that were heavily parasitized. O.K., I'll go back to the field notes place now, LOLOLOL!!!

Todd Hughes

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