Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A while back there was a post about low quality snows.
I have a question about a snake that I just acquired. He appears to be a bloodred. He has the mainly-red-look, but you can see the outlines of the saddles. I know this happens on the lower quality bloodreds. He has the blurred/blended (diffused) side pattern of a bloodred. The snake in question also has a lot of red color on his belly. I know this happens as well. My question is, can or do bloodreds have black on their bellies? My other blood has a pure white belly, but I had thought I had read somewhere that some bloodreds have a little black. This snake does not have the checkerboard, but does have some black. I will post pictures soon. Right now he is getting ready to shed and is hard to see his real colors.
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****Misty****

"Yesterday was the deadline for all complaints"

The list keeps getting Smaller!
Not counting Hatchlings, this is what I have.........

1.1.2 bearded dragons
7.17.4 corn snakes
1.1.0 jungle corns
2.5.0 king snakes
1.0.0 Sinaloan milk snake
0.1.0 Tri-Hybrid milk snake
0.1.0 rat snake
1.1.0 Leucistic rat snakes
1.1.0 Congo African Grey Parrots
0.1.0 German Shepherd hybrid dog

This is a bit of a touchy subject. Some breeders insist that a bloodred has no black on its back or belly. Well, look at the pics of some bloods in the classifieds. I have noted that some do have some black on their backs. Some very faint pattern. A few years back when I started a project I contacted Kathy and Don about this. Kathy responded that some of her bloods had black and so she offered them as hets. (Been some time so forgive me if I have left out any other details) Since then I have continued with my project. Test breedings of my female have proven that she is a bloodred and is a hypo. She does have a small amount of faded, grayish black on her belly and back. A bit of pattern showing. Her best looking son has a couple of specks of grayish black on his belly scales, no larger than the head of a straight pin. His belly is almost completely orange and only about 1/3 white.
Others may not agree but my test breeding with one of Don's bloodreds has proven to me that some bloods do have small amounts of black. I have not contacted any other breeders about their hypo bloodred projects. Just a theory but my female that started my project may have small amounts of faded grayish black because of the interaction between the bloodred and hypo gene.

This is a very controversial issue. There may be two genes at play when it comes to bloodreds: 1) Increased red pigmentation gene, 2) reduced black pigmentation gene. Although I've seen some very nice bloodreds, I do not think I've ever seen one "in person" that was the ideal solid red snake. Most have either hints of black or not enough of an infusion of red to create a completely crimson look.

There are a heck of a lot of "bloodreds" in the classifieds that I would not consider to be bloodreds. It's subjective. I believe that there is still a lot of selective breeding that needs to be done to make the "ultimate bloodred," and in spite of this morph being around for a long time, it still appears to be a "work in progress."

Tim

Third Eye