Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I purchased what I was told was a hypo northern pine snake at a herp show. The breeder told me he bred it with a leusistic and regular northern pine and this sadle backed pattern and lightere colors appeared. I'll download and post some photos when i can get that done. I was wondering if anyone had any knowledge if there were even hypo northerns. My buddy, Van, told me he thinks it may be a southern since he hasn't heard of hypo northerns. Thanks for any info. Pics will come sometime tomorrow.
Aaron

Hypo northerns do exist. This is my hypo northern pine that I got from John Meltzer. The bloodline is one from Bart Bruno. The locale is Alabama also.

They may be rare, as I have only seen one other person post pics of his.

They are killer snakes! Please post a pic of your snake for us to see when you get a chance.

Take care!

Billy

I'm not sure I believe they are pure. Southern pines have been collected in more numbers than Northern pines for a much longer period of time. There are MANY more morphs of southern pines because of this. There are hypo southern pines, there are patternless southern pines, there are ??? southern pines. The only morph KNOWN to be pure are albino northern pines. However, there are also hybrid northern pines that were created using the albino southern pine gene. These may be more common than the real ones by now!

Plain and simple, there may not be any morphs of northern pines that are still 100% pure northern pine genes. Just because people SAY something is a pure northern pine, doesn't make it true. DEMAND (don't just ask, but this doesn't mean stay polite) for proof that something is pure if you have ANY doubts. If you want pure and they can't prove it, pass on the sale. Better safe than sorry. If you can't trace it back to the wild collect animals, find verification of the wild collected animals, and trust the people involved in originating this line, doubt all the morphs that seem to have come from southern pines.

Think about this: if you make a mistake, would you rather make a mistake on the side of caution (think it is ahybrid when it is really pure) or not (think it is pure when it is a hybrid)? I think all responsible people would at least agree, if not live by, the first option EVEN if you are in favor of hybrids. Liking hybrids doesn't mean you like screwing things up...lol.

Granted, I hate hybrids and doubt anything I haven't verified. I've tried verifying most northern pine morphs at one time or another with no luck. Either people just bought them from some guy in Florida who they didn't get his name or they all traced back to the same guy (suspicious, isn't it?), or they breeders refused to answer questions about them. I never could understand why people say their animals are the best but don't like to talk about them and help me understand why their animals are the best....lol.

BTW, I haven't bought from Metlzer, but I've only heard great things about his animals. This wasn't an insult at him. Hopefully, he can post with a paper trail to show us how he knows these to be pure. If so, I'd probably be on the list to get some....lol.

KJUN,
I think I have addressed this issue several times on this forum. My locality Alabama pines came from Bart Bruno. They are a sibling pair. He received the adults as wild caught Alabama locality animals. I have only bred them to each other. To date I have produced 2 hypo males. I have one here and the other I gave to Billy Fraser. Bart is as anal as I am about his locality animals and when I bought them from him as locality Alabama animals his word was all I needed. I'm not sure how much more of a paper trail you require! Sincerely. John Meltzer

>>I think I have addressed this issue several times on this forum.

Well, on the old Pit forum, maybe....lol. Don't be surprised if you have to address it agin in a few months again.

>> My locality Alabama pines came from Bart Bruno. They are a sibling pair. He received the adults as wild caught Alabama locality animals.

I trust Bart from all I've heard about them, so it would depend upon the original colector now. Either way, they are almost definitely pure since Bart got the adults as WCs.

>> I have only bred them to each other. To date I have produced 2 hypo males. I have one here and the other I gave to Billy Fraser.

Has Bart or anyone else, to your knowledge, produced additional hypos? If not, then it is unlikely that the original poster of this thread has your line of pure hypo northern pines, correct? If that is the case, the original poster of this thread my have pure southern pines or hybrid northern pines.

If he doesn't have some from this bloodline, nothing has changed except that your bloodline is verifiable (assuming the original collector is trustworthy and I pretty much assume he is if Bart trusted him!) while this guy definitely may have a southern pine or northern pine hybrid.

>> Bart is as anal as I am about his locality animals and when I bought them from him as locality Alabama animals his word was all I needed. I'm not sure how much more of a paper trail you require! Sincerely. John Meltzer

Since hypo (and other morphs) northern hybrids (?) have been offered for sale for greater than 5 years and had nothing to do with this bloodline, you can see why people are leary of such new morphs. I'm not sure why you got all up in arms just because people asked for a paper trail. Something that is "all you needed" may not be all someone else needs, too. Personally, I'd want to document the original collector, too. That is the only part of this story unknown at this time, correct?

The below is from my original post:
">>BTW, I haven't bought from Metlzer, but I've only heard great things about his animals. This wasn't an insult at him. Hopefully, he can post with a paper trail to show us how he knows these to be pure."

All I was asking for was to see if you had proof that these were pure when the ones that have been sold before lacked proof. I didn't mean to insult you, and I think you got a little over-excited....lol.

SOOOOO, why don't you let the pituophis forum "use" a couple of your photos of these things on the Northern Pinesnake Gallery? I'm betting most of the users here would love to see an image there of a hypo from your line next to a normal sibling for the same line for comparison! Of course, you'd get the proper photo credits! Just post them here giving me permiussion to use them or email them to me directly with permission!

Thanks,
KJ
kj@kingsnake.kingsnake.com

Here are the pix I took of your pine last night. Also, I'm putting the roadcruising and everglades pix up here and at fieldherpers...

Van

Headshot...

Cheers for posting those pics for me Van. So if anyone can help me figure out if this guy is truly a northern pine hypo or something else I'd be appreciative
Aaron

As far as being able to tell if they are pure Northerns or not, it is impossible to do from the looks of the animals in the picture. KJ brought up a problem that is rampant in the northern complex right now and I am only interested in working with animals I can verify from good sources. The two guys you mentioned are both great guys and know thier stuff so I am sure they would be glad to help you track the lineage of your animal IF they produced it. The problem comes in when the background can't be traced. I recieve about 15 - 20 inquiries per week from folks wanting to verify that certain animals came from our stock. About half of them are the real deal, which is why I keep records of every animal we sell for at least five years ( thank goodness ofr computers . The rest are folks that attempt to use our name in the hobby to sell the animals they have.

Bottom line if lineage is important to you be careful, do your homework and use all the tools you have at your disposal. scale counts, tracking etc.

Good Luck,

John Cherry
Cherryville Farms

Cherryville Farms - Reptiles