Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Over the past few days I have been reading some strange posts on leucistic American Rat Snakes. One post claimed that if you crossed a leucistic Black Rat with a leucistic Texas Rat, you don't get leucistic offspring. Another post said that if you cross a leucistic Black rat with a normal Black Rat; you don't get normal looking phenotypes. While I have tried none of these crosses, I think that some folks are making claims that are just not true.

Some facts. The leucistic trait causes a snake to have no chromataphores. This is not at all like albinos that have chromataphores that produce little or no pigment.

From my readings, in general, all these traits are recessive and do not show incomplete dominance. If all these things are true, then when you cross two leucistic Rat Snakes, all their offspring will be leucistic (or else there are two mutations that can produce this morph). When you cross a leucistic Rat Snake with a wild type rat snake, the offspring will look like a cross between the parents' subspecies of origin unless they just happen to be het for the same recessive trait.

If someone wants to claim that this is incorrect, please show us the proof. (Posting pictures and breeding records would be a good place to start.) I am very skeptical of any such claims.

Nice post. I pretty much chose to stay out of the frays below since I made up my mind years ago on the legitimacy of leucistic black rats.

But dadgummit sometimes I just can't help beating a dead horse! The leucistic Texas rat snake bloodline has been bred with black rat snakes since 1980. That is fact, for the doubting thomases they can read for themselves:

Bechtel, H.B., and E. Bechtel. 1985. Genetics of color mutations in the snake, Elaphe obsoleta. Journal of Heredity. 76:7-11

Specifically page 10 details the multiple Texas X Black rat breedings. This article also explains the bugeyed phenomenon for those that don't know its history.

For those that have been around since kingsnake.com first expanded from the old alterna page, you may recall all the old ads for black x texas rat crosses. Wonder where those snakes are now?

OK, enough of the dead horse for me.

Until next time,
dg

Thank you Dweight that is usefull information. Do you think there is a line of lucistic Black Rat that is lucistic in the pure sense? I have not given up hope. I was stirring the pot to see what floated to the surface but the more I stirred the pot the more discouraged I got. At this point I do not feel I will be able to find a pure form lucistic Black Rat. I feel that the people who own the ones out there were hoping by clouding the issue with rhetoric that it would somehow validate their animals but I have found no credible information showing any supplier of anything I would consider pure. My ultimate concern is that someone someday will get board with their collection and rather than sell them in an already saturated market will release them in mass thus polluting a pristine wild population. That seems to have been overlooked in all of this bantering.
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

By polluting the gene pool I am referring to the individual who e-mailed me condoning crossing corn snakes into the mix thus furthur complicating my quest.
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

what is the story on ths bugeyes? Don't hold out on us now.

They were crossed with Trans Tecos rats! lol
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."