Reptile & Amphibian Forums

how much would a wild caught alterna go for? and whats taking so long for one to pop up in a clutch or (more unlikely i guess) wild caught?

i meant a wild caught albino alterna

Because we are watiing for you to produce it!

Wayne

Just kidding, how was production this year? I am still waiting for some of the babies from those insane alterna you have in your collection. Looks like I will miss out on all the fun this year. Maybe next year, hope all is well with the wife and the boys. Talk to you later.

Dan

My divining rod is broken and I lost my four leaf clover/lucky rabbit foot charm!
Todd Hughes

The reason I dont think we have seen a true Albino yet is because Dan Johnson is no longer breeding alterna.
Why you ask? Because when Dan started breeding something, it amazingly turned into utlra-speckled, light phase, anytheristic, pin striped, reduced pattern, triple banded snake.
Yes, I maybe a little jealous but still. I have known some lucky folks in my time but his snakes always seemed to be some of the best. (With Ric Blairs). It is in my opinion that if he continued to breed animals that he would have produced the very first true Locality Albino Alterna.

Again this is just my opinion. And yes Dan, we miss seeing your animals. I used to love looking at the web pages and imagining myself catching an alterna or two that looked like his. I hope Dan comes back to herps soon, even if it is just for the fun of it.

O.K. back to work now... funs over.

Steven

Admittedly I was lucky producing the first anerythristic and hypomelanistic alterna. But I was not as lucky as you might think. Way back the following occurred to me: If an albino or any other simple recessive trait occurs in the wild at the rate of say 1 in 10,000, what is the rate of occurrence of a heterozygous snake? Turns out to be the square root of that number. 1 in 10,000 homozygous equals 1 in 100 heterozygous -- not that rare at all. So I made a concerted effort to backbreed every wildcaught snake to three of it's offspring. That would give me a 7/8 chance of seeing homozygous individuals of any recessive genes a wildcaught snake carries.

from Cuatrocienegas

NP..

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Steve W.

Dan,
You are absolutely right. Actually, I never saw anyone else do the calculations before. I figured them years ago - I think I published it but I don't remember, but that is the right occurance of hets: 1:100. Pretty good chances. Imagine how many people have caught hets and didn't know it. And guess what, I did! I bred our amel subocularis to a wild caught river rd female - got an amel baby! So while I can't say I have caught a wild amel snake, at least I've caught a het! HA!
Glenn

Just wanted to let you know that I enjoy looking at your website and all the info that you collected about so many Alterna. I can't even imagine how much work that must have been. Do you still keep or work with any? Most of us can only dream of accomplishing what you have. Thanks for all your hard work. There are still a lot of people that appreciate your website. Derek

hatching a true albino blairs would be cool......but nuttin' would beat shinin' one up on a cut west of town.....how 'bout an all orange blairs?????

I'll show ya one of those in Daytona BAAAB!!! We Texas boys have all that cool alterna stuff See ya in Florida! I am leaving today, snakin along the way.

Wayne H.