Reptile & Amphibian Forums

OK, sorry to bring up a topic that may have been beat to the ground already, but...

I have some questions (as I am sure many others do) regarding diet being the ONLY influence of color on a snake. Notice I said ONLY.

What about animals from other parts of their range? For example, it has been said on this forum that the red Masticophis flagellum from the Trans-Pecos is red because of diet. If that is the case, what about the populations from the eastern portion of the Trans-Pecos that have red heads and tan bodies? Are they eating red-headed birds to achieve just enough beta carotene to turn their heads red?
And where is the delineation of that color? Are the animals from 10 miles away eating a bird (which, by the way, makes up a very insignificant part of Masticophis diet!) that is not available to it's own relatives?

What about other animals that are encountered in the Trans-Pecos that also vary in color. One such example is Crotalus lepidus. The ones from the eastern portion of their range are white / blue. The ones from the western portions (Indio, Quitman, Davis, Sierra Vieja, etc.) are typically red/orange. Surely people are not suggesting that diet is the MAIN CAUSE of this! As juveniles, the main diet of lepidus is lizards, but the lizards are the EXACT SAME SPECIES over the range of the animal (at least in Texas!)

Bill, as far as subocularis goes, what funny colored pills are you taking? Are you taking the little orange pills that you are supposedly giving to the snakes? LOL!

Subocularis will eat lizards... but that is not their primary diet! Just as Crotalus lepidus will eat Scolopendra, but is that their primary diet? Or what about your precious alterna? Surely you don't think that their primary diet is mammalian prey! Does the orange on those little bass-bait snakes vary due to diet? If so, then why do litter-mates born in captivity and fed an identical diet vary in the brightness of orange? Crap, some even get brighter as they get older (hmmm, sounds remarkably like subocularis!)

Do subocularis vary in coloration? Yes, they do! Even from within the same clutch... And yes, I do have animals that have gotten more orange as they have matured... without the precious color-enhancer beta carotene!

Basically, all I am saying is that yes, I agree with you that diet probably can influence color. But there are WAY TOO MANY other factors to be able to say that is the only way...

Just my $.02 worth...

BTW - Bill, how is that black alterna doing (you know, the one with NO ORANGE!... but I will leave that alone for now!)that I sent you? Produce any babies yet?

Hope to see you on the Gap again this year!

Happy herpin'...

MP

waiting for someone to say or post something like this ! I don't have an intense knowledge of carotenes or claim to have in other animals but species of birds I do and my many freaking years of observing reptile here and there including the Trans- Pecos region of over 35 years. Really I have tried to refrain from saying this on the carotene thread, but you can put into play on every message forum board of this site of the carotene playing a role of color enhancer ( in my mind and opinion ) on ANY reptile if it is true. Taking in for grant that certain species of herps fed carotenes might need help to achieve the use of carotenes by sun light/UV/etc. like lizards and or species of turtles/tortoises. AND having been around the Trans_Pecos region as long as Ross,Hollister,Hibbets ( whom we haven't heard a theory or anything else from as of yet on this ) I'm reluctant to form an opinion of direct diet causing the color/s where it is just more plausible in my mind to say > HEY ! It's genetics ! I also want to say unless there is or would be a damaging effect of using carotenes on reptiles and for just personal enjoyment, go for it. But slightly mentioned before, it should not be a tool for promoting a sale or sales of a alterd color animal the way that canaries and finches were and are if the prospective buyer is not informed. Understand that I am not suggesting anyone here is doing that neither.
-----
I may be old , cantankerous, crabby, and cynical, but......

I've been following this thread rather closely, and I haven't seen Sighthunter (or anyone else) claim that diet was the ONLY influence on orange color in Subocularis. The consensus seems to be that genetic predisposition can be enhanced by diet.

In the case of lepidus, I believe it has been fairly well established that the primary influence on their color is simple natural selection-they tend to blend in with the color of the most common rock in their habitat.

Brad Chambers

My hunch is that a nice pink or red lepidus will fade in captivity.I may furthur speculate that the same animal would benifit from added carotene in the diet. A pink animal may actualy turn red also. I also feel that some animals will be nice no matter what. Have I ever seen an orange sub-oc right out of the egg? No. Is it possable? Yes.
-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

"Really I have tried to refrain from saying this on the carotene thread, but you can put into play on every message forum board of this site of the carotene playing a role of color enhancer ( in my mind and opinion ) on ANY reptile if it is true."

Start a thread on color enhancement on EVERY forum on this site!

That'll drive EVERYONE nuts! LOL

By the way, Jedi Knight, the coachwhips with the red heads are eating woodpeckers. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Cheers,
Max
-----
"I got out of the business because it's almost impossible to do business without breaking a law some place, whether you knowingly do it or not."
Tom Crutchfield

There is one thing nobody has given me credit for. I could capitalize on my findings but I chose to share it with you all. I could get more money for neon orange Rosy Boas, Orange Sub-oc's etc...

-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

So what you're saying is, is that you can make all of these snakes the same color.
Just add carotene.

Maybe you should let the guys on the mud turtle forum know about this.
-----
"I got out of the business because it's almost impossible to do business without breaking a law some place, whether you knowingly do it or not."
Tom Crutchfield

Mud turtle guy is trying Salmon Chow last time I checked.
-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

You could make a lot of money for selling someone a snake with unusually striking cololrs that fade after a few sheds...... but I would hope you wouldn't. What you basically did was congratulate yourself for not ripping people off.....
This is not a personal attack by any means. I am just saying that un-natural color enhancement will reach that level before too long if unchecked. I am interested in your findings. Keep up the good work and let us know what develops.
-----
0.1 Snow Corn "Hope"
1.0 Ball Python "Wilson" (Castaway)
1. Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Chunk" (Goonies)
.1 Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Peaches"
0.0.1 Mexican Black Kingsnake "Onyx"
0.0.1 Black Ratsnake "Shadow"

As we say in Missouri, "I ain't goin back to Missouri!"

How about selling a young snake from orange wild caught that never turn orange?
-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Hellow Mike,

Ever notice how most bright colored snakes fade in captivity? Yellows fade, orange fades pink etc…? Pink Coachwhips stay pink for a couple of years and start to fade. I have noticed that all four of my wild caught orange Sub-ocs faded to yellow or yellow orange. I started suplimenting my coachwhips with natural carotene and the intense pink came back. I hadn’t thought to give it to sub-ocs till about four years ago as an experiment. It worked on the orange ones and one in particular became close to the carrot orange I was after. It happened to be a Black Gap animal that was very mature. What I did not expect is that two of the sub-oc’s turned orange that did not have orange before the diet. I use very orange egg yoke to simulate hatchling birds and inject it into rats and mice. It does not however work on all snakes or all sub-oc’s but the ones that it does work on are very noticeable over a relatively short period of time usually within two shed cycles. I do not claim to know what exactly is going on yet other than it works. I will do some before and after shots as well as attempt to make a bloodred using natural carotene. If I can make a bloodred does it mean anything? I guess that will be assessed on an individual basis.
-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Hey Mike,

I missed out on the first iteration(s?) of this thread, but it is certainly interesting. Pardon me if I am late to the party and these comments have already been hashed out and over.

A few cents of my own...

I have no expertise in anything, let alone reptile pigmentation but I am pretty comfortable that the red and yellow pigments seen in snakes are carotenoid in nature.

According to a page on the website of the American Chemical Society -

But making these pigments from scratch is not a talent that any of these animals can claim. Carotenoids are produced exclusively by organisms equipped with photosynthetic centers: plants, algae, fungi, and photosynthetic bacteria and plankton. Certain animals can do limited interconversions of one pigment to another, but they have to start with some diet-supplied carotenoid to get this process going.

Given that, the only (?) source of these pigments or their precursors may be dietary. If that is the case, why wouldn't supplementation work? It does in fish and birds.

It would be easy to test. Just take two siblings and feed one carotenoids. You could just add some color enhanced fish food to the food items over a period of weeks and photograph them under the same conditions every month for a half year or so.

Now, are carotenoid pigments in the diet the primary factor determining the coloration of populations of snakes? Clearly not, IMHO. Regional variation in snake coloration is the result of the combination of natural selection and fluctuations in gene frequencies over time. If the diet is carotenoid deficient, they will be less red than usual, but high carotenoid diets may not necessarily lead to increased color beyond a genetically predetermined level.

You will probably have too many baby bairdi this year (or bogeys for that matter!). Why not set up a simple experiment and raise a few randomly chosen babies side by side with different levels of carotenoid dosing.

The problem is that these pigments have been shown to have negative effects when fed in large doses.
-
-----
Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

I thought we finally got rid of this topic...

Anyway, I may be wrong, but I don't think to experimentally test subocs like that would be that easy, because they are so completely variable, even within the same clutch.

Even two siblings that look very similar as babies may very well turn out different as adults.

We all know that all North American Rat Snakes go through an ontogenetic color change early in life. Most (maybe besides Pantherophis obsoletus obsoletus) get brighter. I can't think of one that doesn't, whether you're talking about Pantherophis(Elaphe), Bogertophis or Senticolis. Even many lindy's and black rats later add orange, red or yellow to their gray baby paint job.

And the same bright colors intensify on a diet of unadulterated captive white lab mice as they do in the wild on Peromyscus mice, birds and the occasional Uta lizard.

And by the way, there are brown subocs that show up within feet of the bright orange ones. Go look at Shannon Brown's PC animals. Would you think their diet is different if they are living under the same rock?
So my argument is that orange color is selected for on orange/reddish dirt. That's simple Darwin science. Which is why you see orange Bogey's, pink/reddish sidewinders and pink/red Masticophis flagellum all on respectively colored substrates.
I asked my herpetology professor, Dr. Jack Sites, about this the other day and he said the same thing. He did not say it was diet related. He said they generally match the substrate.

And by the way, the words "before-and-after pics" keep coming up. You wanna see some before-and-after pics of the golden/orange (Oro del Rio) phase?
Go look at Dean's '05 "Oro del Rio" male that he has for sale right now on KS, and compare it to my 18 month old "Oro del Rio" male. They're siblings. The older one is orange, but started out similar to the '05 baby with that golden-honey color.

by the way, Chris...nice photo in last month's Rep mag.

Later on y'all!
Dusty

my "Oro del Rio" male

Dusty, here is what I noticed in sub-ocs. Take Shannons snake for instance. Do you have a current pic? He has had it for a year or so. The orange one, has it faded? It is an adult. Yes or no question. I have had four wild caught adult orange fade. I fed carotene to two of them and they colored back up. Real simple.
-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Chris here are siblings. You decide it carotene works. This one
got carotene.

-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

This one got no carotene and is a sibling to the other one.

-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

The majority of this thread reminds me of the cartoon where an ostrich has his head in a hole. The ostrich is those people willing to argue something they have no data on, have not tried and do not know. No, you will never have results if you have your head in a hole but you can argue all day long about what if. I on the other hand took the time to test a theory without expecting much and was excited when things worked out. Do I know why this plane fly’s? No, not yet.
-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Sorry, but not a single suboc in my collection has "faded"... in fact, they have achieved brighter colors since I have obtained them. I have never experienced what you are refering to about "fading" over time, nor have I seen it in others collections. Not sticking my head in a hole, just saying that I haven't seen it... subocs typically brighten their colors as they get older, not fade...

Again, let me REITERATE... I am NOT saying that colors can not be enhanced as you are saying. What I am saying is if this is truly a scientific study, there needs to be a system in place to weed out all of the "noise" in the theory. For example, different species react differently to different conditions, whether it be food, housing, or whatever.

For a very rough example, I remember being at a well-known breeders collection and having him say that he didn't understand why his snakes were going through periods of looking "piebald" and then when they shed, they would lose that appearance. He was keeping his snakes on newspaper, then the uric acid would dry on the snake, thus giving it a "piebald" appearance. Now like I said, that is a very rough example, and by NO MEANS am I saying that you are that clueless (I know better than that!)

But a scientific study takes SEVERAL case studies, not just a handful of different species.

Let me re-iterate again that I am not saying that it is not possible, but more research needs to be explored.

And you still have to answer the question about a species that is sympatric with "red" coachwhips, and not only sympatric but syntopic with subocularis, the little bass-bait alterna. They are more "geared" for a lacertilian prey than subocularis, why do they have such variety in litter mates? Some have bright orange that only get brighter, while others have dull orange that only gets duller. Or any other combination! Isn't it possible (and plausible) that there is variation from litter mates in subocularis as in alterna? Don't give that nasty little kingsnake more notoriety than it deserves!! LOL!

And the photos you just posted, how many specimens of that species have you seen? And from how many different localities? Wouldn't it take HUNDREDS of specimens to determine the type of genetics involved?

Anyway, I will be gone to the mountains until next Monday, so I am sure that this will go away and a new topic will get everyone ranting.

Oh yeah, how are those alterna?

Happy herpin'...

MP

My experience in Bogey coloration has been dead-on with Mike's description.
That is.. ALL of my subocs have only achieved BRIGHTER colors since I have had them. None of the 20-some-odd that I own have "faded" either.

Dusty R.
Suboc.com

Can we get a current picture of Shannons orange? I know your female is nice Mike how about a pic. I saw her not that long ago she was about as nice as they get.
-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Here is a picture of an Alterna that got some carotene. It started out so so but did turn out nicer than the parents. No sun spots. I think carotene would work well with Centralian Pythons for nicer red and possibly would brighten some of the drab mandrin ratsnakes out there. By the way the orange female you had was very nice, I was impressed. Dave still has your Black Alterna. I have left about four mesages for you but I never got a return call. There are quite a few offspring from that Black Alterna.

-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Wasn't really planning on picking on you, but what the hell kinda substrate is that? Dish soap?

-----
"I got out of the business because it's almost impossible to do business without breaking a law some place, whether you knowingly do it or not."
Tom Crutchfield

Silica sand and spilled water. An interesting note on her she started out the first year with bleach spots in her orange but I do not know anything about Greybands to make a call on the carotene with her. I do know she did turn out nicer than her parents. She is Langtry produced by John Frasier and was given carotene from birth.
-----
"Life without risk is to merely exist."