Reptile & Amphibian Forums

was the first leucistic lindheimer's a result of a clutch of eggs laid by a snake bought by one of those texas zoos to feed to king cobras....after she dropped.....she was fed off???........john groves in 1973 or so...picked up a a white black rat that was wild caught in virginia.....his pop, frank, was told about it and sent john to get it.....i don't know what happened to it.....but that thing was pure white!!!!!

Let's say that the lucy black rats are true. Who is to say that all of the lucy black rats are from this line. There would be no problem crossing the lucy gene from the texans to the blacks. So it is very probable that both of these exist.

Has anyone tried to cross a lucy black rat to a texas lucy. If the genes were not compatible this would give strong support for their lucy black being from a different line.

Also I have seen lucy black rats that have the bug eyes commonly seen in the texans, making me think that the crosses are out there and possibly in greater numbers. Either way I prefer the texans for 1 reason, I live in Ohio and would need a permit to keep the black rats.

I strongly agree that even if a pure strain does exist (and I think that it very well might)...Lots of "leucistic black rats" being sold are also VERY likely black/texas mixes. And, yes, we Ohio folks are better off with texas rats anyway unless we want to mess around with the dreaded pitt tags. Screw that!

Hey, Bob,
I think the Black Rat turned out to be amelanistic; definite maybe on that! I think Frank added to his pioneering work on amel corns.
The black below is pretty white.
Do you recognize the caging in the corn pic from long, long ago in a galaxy far away?
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Regards, Bill McGighan

the baltimore zoo reptile house that ain't even in the zoo????

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Regards, Bill McGighan

I think the Black Rat turned out to be amelanistic; definite maybe on that! I think Frank added to his pioneering work on amel corns.

Bill,
Actually Bechtel "pioneered" the amel corns, he first produced them in 1961. Groves produced his amels from hets that he acquired from Bechtel's original 1959 breedings. Just wanted to point out that Bechtel had a part in this as well. I'm sure you knew this already, but some forum participants may not. See:

Bechtel, H.B. and E. Bechtel. 1962. Heredity of albinism in the corn snake, Elaphe guttata, demonstrated in captive breedings. Copeia. 2:436-437

Groves, F. 1965. Further notes on albinism in the corn snake, Elaphe guttata. Copeia 2:252

dg

Hey, Dwight,
You're 100% right about Bechtel starting (pioneering) the line, of course.

It’s just that to some of us that were in the geographic area of Washington DC in the 60s, Frank Groves got more visibility with the zoo and all.
To be able to actually see an amelanistic anything back then was so special back then.
I was lucky enough to be given one of Frank’s hets in ‘69 from some nice folks at the Smithsonian, because I donated a few specimens that I collected in Vietnam, so I was immediately thankful, indirectly, to Frank.
Thanks for the clarification.
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Regards, Bill McGighan

was the first leucistic lindheimer's a result of a clutch of eggs laid by a snake bought by one of those texas zoos to feed to king cobras....after she dropped.....she was fed off???

Bob,
The first recorded leucistic Texas rat snake was caught as a hatchling in 1962. It was a male and was sent to Dr. Bern Bechtel in 1978 on breeding loan. It mated with a normal phase female and then died.

See: (Bechtel, H.B., and E. Bechtel. 1985. Genetics of color mutations in the snake, Elaphe obsoleta. Journal of Heredity. 76:7-11) and (Bechtel, H.B. 1995. Reptile and Amphibian Variants. pp 72-73)

....john groves in 1973 or so...picked up a a white black rat that was wild caught in virginia.....his pop, frank, was told about it and sent john to get it.....i don't know what happened to it.....but that thing was pure white!!!!!

Are you thinking of the albino from Maryland found in 1969? Groves bred this animal (an adult female) and proved the mutation's recessive inheritance. He subsequently provided Bechtel with albino and heterozygous offspring to use in his own breeding trials. Bechtel had acquired an albino from Virginia, but it was captured in 1957 and was proven to be non-allelic with Groves' Maryland strain. See:

Bechtel, H.B. and E. Bechtel. 1981. Albinism in the snake, Elaphe obsoleta. The Journal of Herpetology. 15(4):398-399

Hope this helps,
dg