Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Several months ago I decided to downsize my collection of corn snakes. In the process, I have become more and more interested in the few mexican kingsnakes I have. Like many newcomers to this group, I have many questions about the various phases, espsecially of the L.m.thayeri. From what I can gather there are 4 "standard" phases (melanistic, milksnake, leonis, buckskin) I know that there have been many attempts (some successful) at breeding different colors into these phases. I have a leonis from John's vivid line as proof of that, but I am primarily interested in what could be considered "classic" specimens of each phase. One reason why I am getting out of corns is that I never really did get into the "morph" thing, and the nice thing about Thayeri's is that these morphs are naturally occuring. That's what I am into. Nice looking, naturally occuring morphs. That brings me to my question. I am looking for sites that have nice pictures of any of the mexicana subspecies (I also have 2.3 mex mex) I've done a google search and a yahoo search and I have checked out a few nice sites but I am sure there are some that I have missed. I figured I'd come to the experts and see what I can find.

thanks

Steve Schindler

P.S to John. The vivid line male is doing great but I missed uot on breeding him. He just didn't put on the size I had wanted. Next year though I have high hopes for him.

There are a few web sites that i have seen some great pictures on, i dont know if it consitered advertising or not, but check out the pictures on dan v's web site (serpentsonline.com) and look at his collection, there are also nice pictures on VIChris' web site of his collection (you will have to click the link at the bottom of one of his posts for the website) and i have also seen great pictures at jonelle lopez's site (selectivepropogations.com) all those sites have real nice pictures Of Thayeri, oh and mountainkings.com also has great pictures. check them out it will give you a good idea of whats out there. as for classic i am not sure what could be consitered classic, the male i am posting at the bottom is my best guess for "classic"

Adam

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1.1 THAYERI (1.1 added soon)
1.2 SPLENDIDA (1.0 ALBINO/ 0.2 HYPO)
1.3 ALTERNA

0.1 PYXIE FROG
0.0.1 TADPOLES

That is a very nice snake, and thats pretty much what I would consider a very nice classic leonis phase. Nice even, consistent markings. very nice indeed.

Thanks for the sites, I'll check them out now.

Steve

After Tim Gebhard at Vivid Reptiles came up with his VR line of super-saturated orange, yellow, and red snakes, he also came up with his "earth tones" line which represents the "wild look". This line was started with a wild caught female, and represents the closest you can really get genetically to a wild thayeri. So vivid is responsible for the super bright colors, but also responsible for a new trend back to what's more natural. Tim is covering all the bases. No one here is really going to criticize him. He's really dedicated to thayeri.

BTW there are three phases (leonis, milksnake, and melanistic) Buckskin is a background color. There are buckskin leonis, buckskin milksnake phases, etc..

There have been many wild thayeri posted on this forum. E-mail me if you would like to see some of the pics and get an idea of what they look like. Some are more colorful than you may think.

Greg