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WC L. t. polyzona with one bad attitude!

Frank

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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Try again....

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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Nice snake! Where did you buy it (if you don't mind my asking!)? Any locality info on it? By the way, I've got a female who's down-right nasty!!
thanks
-Cole

locale data or did a importer say it was polyzona?Just wondering cause I have seen allot of polyzona but never one like that.They do intergrade with several other ssp.Maybe its a polyzona x smithi?
Shannon Brown

Shannon,..........what's your view of this one?

another very interesting snake.
That could very well be Abnorma. Do you have any pics or info on the adults? Did the adults have vey dark white bands or clean whites?
Locality would be nice.....Jeff

Hi Jeff,......Not "abnorma", as for the parents, they had a pretty high band count as well, with vivid yellow bands, tipped with black (not muddied-up). The bloodline mirrors the holotype in (Systematics~ Kenneth L. Williams pg.109 )and (Markel's pg 103), with the exception of having cleaner red bands. With this being said, you will probably be pleasantly surprised in knowing that you are already very familiar with this bloodline!!it is from many years ago, and the animals originated from (S.B.). Does this ring any bells?.

I would say its full blown polyzona.The problem with williams book is that he only sampled a few animals to get his mean (average)# of red band counts etc...
Many years ago teryy vanderventer had some animals from the northern end of veracruz and they are high band count as the one is in Markels book.Well,he crossed his line with Scott Ballards line (that was much lower count) and there is a wide aray of animals produced from those generations.I have seen some pop out with 31 or 32 rbr's.
I still have this line going and its on my site if anybody wants to look at the adults etc....
Shannon

Just went through some great photos Jeff sent over and I am reminded of the snakes that came into THE SHED and PET FARM which were generically labelled Hondurans. I can tell you the animals were variable eough to badly strain Anyone's definitions. (another arguement for the keeping w/c bloodlines as pure as possible).

My snake is just over 2'. looks like I will have to let it grow and see what happens to the black.

Frank

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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I should mention when I am refering to those importers that was in the late seventies to early eighties.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Note the nose bar that is very typically Poly. The red band counts and several other specifics matched. As to possible int. The chin marking suggests honduran. With Smithi-unlikely. Poly (venter) has the white rings interupted by black, Also Poly has a red band count of 14-22. Smithi has 19-30.

This is what troubles me about yours and DMongs. The red band count seems too high for a poly.

The problem with identification is that in Central American Milks the meritistics often over-lap. I keyed this snake out using:

SYATEMATICS AND NATURAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MILKSNAKE~Williams

KINGSNAKES AND MILK SNAKES~Markel

One problem here is the pictures vary considerably deppending on source.

He turned up at a show. I know this snake was wild caught (predation scars present) but do not know the locality.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Noting the several obvious spelling errors in my last post i have to remember-no writing before coffee.

Frank

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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Another reference used which actually shows a photo of a snake very similar to mine is:

THE GENERAL CARE AND MAINTENANCE OF MILK SNAKES~Bob Applegate.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

really interesting snake, I'm thinking it most resembles the Oligozona/Conants that used to come in 25-30 years ago. I see what you see for Polyzona and can't dismiss that but the snake is just a bit too bright for a typical Polyz adult.
I'll shoot you a pic of my Olig/Conant, see if you agree that they're similar. Jeff
no, I have no locality data....

Jeff,

The snake actually is more stained with black on the red (more monochromatic). My flash threw the color off.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."