Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can someone list out the color morphs that are currently being bred for Black Rat snakes?

I currently have : Wild types , albino(light pink) , Orange albino, Rusty, whitesided, Leucistic and a leucistic-albino. What am I missing?

Brindle would be another.Dewey and Dre from this forum could tell ya more.Those guys are pretty up on the morphs.

Before I list some of the other morphs out there, remember that some people feel that some of these are not "pure" or are just a color variation to a particular morph. From my years of breeding black rats, I have been fortunate enough to see/produce just about every morph there is. The following is a list....not complete I'm sure, but a list nonetheless.

Normal, Amel (Type I and Type II), White-Sided/Licorice stick, Sunglow, Calico, Lemon, Albino Lavender/Hypo, Cinnamon Stick, Brindle, Leucistic, Rusty is nothing more that the visual het form of the leucistic...it is not an actual morph itself. There are also combinations of all of these. And there was another morph that doesn't exist anymore...the Chocolate Chip.

Hope this helps.

Dewey

" Normal, Amel (Type I and Type II), White-Sided/Licorice stick, Sunglow, Calico, Lemon, Albino Lavender/Hypo, Cinnamon Stick, Brindle, Leucistic, Rusty is nothing more that the visual het form of the leucistic...it is not an actual morph itself. There are also combinations of all of these. And there was another morph that doesn't exist anymore...the Chocolate Chip. Hope this helps. "

Yes this does help. So now I am curious to see the different morphs as well. Any idea on where i can see some good pics of the less common ones listed? My black rats have become my favorites out of a large variety of colubrids that I keep. I would love to expand the collection with some other morphs.

I didnt realize that the Rusty was not considered a "morph" . Yes, I did know it was a visual het of the leucistic but didnt realize that it didnt qualify as a morph. Interesting. thanks.

As far as seeing pics of these, you would be better off asking the forum people for specific morph pics. I will try to post some later on tonight.

Dewey

I don't know if it's included in here, since I've never heard some of these names... But you can also have albino brindle, and white-sided brindle, and you can have albino white-sideds. That white sided brindle may be what you called the cinnamon stick.. I've also heard of "salt and pepper", which is just a "licorice stick" with less black in it. Rather than a solid black stripe, it's "peppered" with black.
I knew a lot of rusties were het. leucistic.. But I didn't know ALL rusties are het leuc. You learn something new every day.

What did the chocolate chip look like? Sounds interesting.

Here's a female brindle. Male brindles have a lot more red in them than females do.

And here's what some would deem a "high orange albino." He was sold to me as an albino. I honestly think the amount of orange in him is just a locality specific thing; albinos always vary between lines. His babies have a lot of yellow showing through in them, like a lot of the Kentucky locale black rats.

this?

Gorgeous?
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0.1 Snow Corn "Hope"
1. Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Chunk" (Goonies)
.1 Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Peaches"
0.0.1 MO Locale Black Ratsnake "Molly" (Flogging Molly)

"You can only take my money for so long. And then I don't have anymore, and then I get angry!"

it's gorgeous. Amazing. I've never seen a black rat that looked ANYTHING like that. That wouldn't be what's considered "sunglow"? I'd probably consider that to be sunglow on a corn.

Any opinions would be nice. And no, those are not scars on the normal.

-----
Thanks,
Jamie and Kayce
cantilxcotton@yahoo.com

0.1 Chocolate Albino Leopard Gecko
0.1 High Yellow Leopard Gecko-(Oats)
1.0 High Yellow Leopard Gecko-(Wyatt)
0.1 Mack Snow Leopard Gecko-(Potion)
0.1 Ghost Leopard Gecko-(Coffin)
0.0.1 Pastel Leopard Gecko-(Lemon)
0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko-(Kist)
0.1 Bell Albino Leopard Gecko
0.1 High Yellow Leopard Gecko
1.0 Harlequin Dalmation Crested Gecko-(Dali)
1.0 Southern Painted Turtle-(Bat)
0.1 Eastern Cottonmouth-(Fat @$$)
0.2 House Cats-(Cali & Lilly)
0.1 Ausie Shepard-(Jackie)
1.0 Bully Boxer-(River)

Dewey I think we can agree that we can disagree and still be cool !!!!..Again I have breed rusties for yrs and NEVER produce lucy from rusties..You can tell the differents from a normal rusty from a het.The het are brighter in colors than the normal rusties
Rusty x Brindle = cinnanmon blk rat
here's a pic
Another morphs
Amel Rusty = sunrise blk rat
Lavender blk rat
Vanish pattern licorice = very faint pattern licorice
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The combos are endless

Thanks for all the pics and information guys.

I have a nice variety to start breeding this year and am looking to add another pair of different morphs so I can diversify even more.

Since I already have a wildtype, two types of albino, a leucy, a leucy-albino, a whitesided, and a rusty ( that is het for ws & leuc, what do you think would be a nice additional pairing ?

Brindle and a Lavender and you have yourself an awesome little collection. Just curious, what did you intend to take your wild type to?

I actually dont have the wildtype in my breeding plans. He was my first rat snake actually. I found him on a trail in Kansas as a hatchling and have raised him. I figure eventually he will be good to create some hets, but currently I dont have a female intended for him.

We found a nest of damaged black rat eggs last month and incubated them anyway. 4 hatched last week so I have black rat wildtype babies already. ;o) I dont know what I am going to do with those. I just wanted to save them if I could.

Very NICE DRE!! That is awesome. It has become abundantly clear that there are @ least two distinct different variations of the Lic. Stick (White-sided) Black Rats. I believe yours might make a third. There is the typical (?) phase represented by the majority of animals in the photo. There is also an "extreme" phase of this that doesn't have the same color pattern or distinction found down the back. The stripe is usually not as wide & lacks the distinction giving it more of a aberrant stripe. The extreme has a s stripe that lacks the ladder pattern defined by the alternating yellow/cream and grey/black having a more washed uniform grey colour. Also interesting is the fact that certain specimens also have eyes - sometimes just one not both - in which the lower halves (or half) is black. Love your new ones....keep us up-to-date

Here is an interesting "Rusty" variation of the Black Rat Snake from Winchester, Virginia. Most of the snakes removed from the homeowner's residence bear varying degrees of this color, although this snake shows the greatest amount of red.

More photos are at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/netherper/sets/72057594129644457/

I bought him an albino female to play with so we'll see what comes of that.

I also just released a bunch of normal hatchlings from a female from the same house but no variants.

Dennis

Rusty Black Rat Snake Flickr Set

Beautiful animal there. The "rusty" gene is characterized by it's co-dominance effect. It shouldn't be confused by a high "red" wild type like the one you have there. I have seen many wild types that are high red or orange or yellow. I will try to post a pic of a nice Pennsylvania wild type I have that is red like the one in your pic. Another interesting characteristic characteristic about rusties is their eye color. They DO NOT have a normal grayish eye color. Their eyes are more brown/rusty in color.
There is another "rusty" phase from the Ohio area that is referred to as a Copper Saddle phase. It too shows the brown eyes and co-dominance. I will try to post pics of these later on this evening as well.
I hope this clarifies a few things.

Dewey

Thanks! That helps. I spoke with a dealer this weekend about Rusty rats and based on what you said and what the dealer stated, there appear to be variants within each major BRS population that express themselves periodically. So, they are not necessarily localized to a specific region or isolated by geologic features creating individual populations.

Another question - how would one key out a cross between a corn snake and a BRS? What key identification features would I look for as far as scale counts, coloration, eye color, etc...?

Thanks

BTW - I posted a couple of variants I shot this weekend here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/netherper/sets/72157594289195724/
Flickr Page