Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Gotta love those brooks!!!

Well I gotta ask. What do you know of the heritage of these snakes? Where did the parents come from, and their parents?

I know some of you think I'm harping on this subject, but I hope some of you also realize that when our kingsnake offspring gradually become unrecognizable as specific species or subspecies, then the breeders will be screwed.

I think the kingsnake is on the verge of becoming the very first "white mouse" of the herp world. When we sell "brooksi" or any other subspecies that has very questionable heritage (like the albino easterns wild caught in NC from the link below)the very credibility of the industry is sinking.

I'm not blaming any one. But I know people are now selling "pure" subspecies who have been breeding crosses big time just a few years ago. And honestly, I see phenotypic genetic evidence of prairie kings, corn snakes, cal kings, etc in the offspring sold as brooksi, goini, even getula.

Is it time for a sort of AKC for kingsnake breeders? A registry of sorts could root out the unscrupulus breeders (and many of us know who they are)and give added credibility to those who are trying to do it right.

What do you all think?

Joe

In order to bring some order to the breeding of kingsnakes, maybe something like the AKC could be set up. Maybe it could be a board made up of volunteers: a professional herpetologist beyond reproach, a professional breeder with deep understanding of the species, and maybe a few others, but no one with a vested commercial interest in the production of the species.

Genetic testing is getting less expensive, but I think many "mutts" could be identified by exploring their heritage and physical appearance. Breeders of questionable snakes could pay to have genetic tests run, or just choose to sell their offspring as unverified.

The benefit would go to those who have been careful to breed sub-species to sub-species, who tried to be locality specific (within reason) and who have been honest with their public sales.

The big losers would be those with a checkered past who have pushed cross-bred snakes off as pure sub-species and whose snakes carry phenotypic traits indicating hybrid origins.

In other owrds, the good guys would win, the bad guys would loose - and in the end, the hobby wouldn't sink into the hands of the "pretty snake" fame and money making motives.

Joe

I know what ya mean, as far as "brooksi", and many others in the "getula" complex with so much OTHER influence in their lineage, that MANY people have no idea whatsoever of EXACTLY it is they own/breed!.

That's another reason everyone keeps poppin' up with weird lookin' stuff all the time. It's not because the breeder, or his snakes are so damn fantastic!,......it's because there's SO MUCH OTHER STUFF in their bloodline, that people's snakes keeps expressing oddities out of what seems to be every other clutch.

I'm not "knockin' everyones stuff, because there are many breeders that are refining and perpetuating some "real" stuff.

As far as that pedigree thing happening,......forget it, that will NEVER, EVER happen!,......that's for sure.

Here's a hatchling locality pure "brooksi" from extreme Southern Dade,County....het for NOTHING!!...ZERO!!

-----
"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

As far as that pedigree thing happening,......forget it, that will NEVER, EVER happen!,......that's for sure.

Well, if people really wanted it to, it could happen. It's all a simple procedure, it just has to be followed and noted. There are pedigrees for chondros that date back to more than 30 years. Here's an animal I produced from the ancestry of the very first captive bred chondros produced in the U.S. These go back to 1976. Now that's history. Keep records folks. Give your snakes ID numbers and history cards if you want it to work. Chondro folk are very anal.

Brandon Osborne
-----
www.brandonosbornereptiles.com

Thanks for your thoughts. I totally agree, its reached the pont that people don't even know what they are buying. And they are being very deliberately mislabeled by some ( we probably all know them)

When you work hard to produce the pure snakes such as is your photo it has to hurt to see someone else produce a true mutt and get a better price for it. Mutts are fine, but they should be labelled as such, and priced as such.

I tend to disagree though that a pedigree can't be established. Read the info below about the GTPs. Just because kingsnakes have a late start doesn't mean good things can't happen going forward.

It wouldn't be easy, but I think its worth it just to keep people from fooling uneducated buyers. There is way too much of that gong on right now!

Joe

Osborne is right when it comes to the "Chondros", that's a whole different "bird". How many chondros do you see floating around that look like they have tons of other types of gen-flow in them??.........NONE!! basically...that I know of anyway(probably just a matter of short time though). And like he said, Chondro folks are a different breed of people too, he said that also, and I would have to agree 100% with that as well.

It is totally possible, but not very probable at all when it comes to the "getulus" complex, as well as some others(corns for example). the reasons there would be many(mostly political) with tight-knit "clicks" and what not in the trade.

Where would you find enough "un-biased" people with enough experience under their belt in "kings" to get involved in this thing that would be willing to ruin their good buddies business, along with maybe their own as well??

It's gone way too far now for enough years to "un-change" the problem.

I'm pretty "anal" also as he mentioned about purity in my animals too, and I've had some SUPER animals in my day, and every last one of them was pure, or as close to pure as humanely possible.
with the exception of a couple "Jungle corns", and "Snow Jungle corns" many years ago.

Anyway, if purity is you're thing,....keep them just that, pure, and don't reach into your pocket every time you see stuff that looks unusual.....I certainly don't, and alot of others don't either, but as long as there's a market for anything(not just snakes) there will be a supply,......supply and demand has made the world turn since day one, and will continue to do so.

Here is a pic of one of the purist "nelsoni" I used to own that anyone has ever layed eyes on!!.......before hardly ANYONE even knew what they were,.......and well before the albino
"nelsoni" was produced,...... then there was the "mad-rush" to produce albino "nelsoni",... except there was a problem,..there weren't nearly enough of them in the trade, so people had to introduce the next best thing in order to perpetuate the (back then) VERY! expensive albino. So,...... in comes "Mr. Sinaloan".
And so on, and so on.

My saying these things certainly wasn't meant to "bash" anyone, or the snakes they enjoy, but only to explain a little snake "reality" to a few folks.

Here's a pic of that exceptional "nelsoni".

-----
"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

The only "pure" animal is a wild animal.
The closest we come in captive bred lines are locality animals, but even locality lines can noticebly deviate from wild stock as they are selectively bred for appearance rather than for what survives. Locality animals after several generations also may have far less genetic diversity than the typical pure wild animal has got. Even they are different.

When you cross localities, you have really ended any sense of purity at all. Subspecies are man made designations to fit our classification system. Sometimes new ones are created and sometimes old ones are discarded.

Would a Cal King from Shasta County ever mate with a Cal King from Los Angelas county in the wild? I suppose if one hitched a ride on Union Pacific and managed to survive - but no, even though they are Cal Kings they would never pair on their own accord - and are really no more "pure" than a Cal King X Floridana.

Some people may argue "but wait - they at least are same subspecies" - which is a point, but subspecies get reorganized. Sometimes they find a reason to split one up and sometimes they find a reason to have one swallow another.

Only pure animal is a wild animal (which may have recent hybrid blood in it we can't see) and the closest we can come in captivity is documented captive bred locality.
-----
11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.1 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus nasicus (W Hognose)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

When we try to define pure - what we try to do is establish a collection of genes and do not allow genes not in that collection to enter. Bring in new genes and it is no longer pure.

With the exception of isolated populations, though, that is the exact opposite of what nature does - where new genes freely flow back and forth into and out of a locality population, even between subspecies and sometimes even between species.

When they don't flow because a population is isolated, you then have the possibility (takes time, granted) of speciation as the new population creates new genes through mutations that are kept from the rest of the population.
-----
11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.1 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus nasicus (W Hognose)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

I think purity is a ridiculous notion in any snake. It’s a word rooted in religion, bigotry and intolerance. Snakes have always been able to travel great distances in nature whether by migration, floods, following a river bank, etc. Constantly encroaching on new territories and searching for greener pastures. Intergration and adaptation is why all snakes in North America don’t look exactly alike. They evolve and adapt to new habitat and continue to find mates. Sometimes they cross themselves and create a new clade. The process is ever expanding and continuing. Or at least it use to, before roads, pavement, and those two-legged things with sticks. Very few snakes are ever “pure” anything. You have examples that represent the common form within a given range until you get over that next hill, or across the river, or whatever marks the area of predominance of the next typical form next door. They readily breed with each other because they were designed to do that for a gazillion years! Pure means inbred, isolated, representing weakness and in nature is a dead end. Just an opinion, of course.

me sentiments are in agreeance with ya'lls line O thinkin methinks,,,,,,,,thomas davis
-----
Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

Good Opinion!!!! And I agree!!!

Pat

I think purity is a ridiculous notion in any snake. It’s a word rooted in religion, bigotry and intolerance. Snakes have always been able to travel great distances in nature whether by migration, floods, following a river bank, etc. Constantly encroaching on new territories and searching for greener pastures. Intergration and adaptation is why all snakes in North America don’t look exactly alike. They evolve and adapt to new habitat and continue to find mates. Sometimes they cross themselves and create a new clade. The process is ever expanding and continuing. Or at least it use to, before roads, pavement, and those two-legged things with sticks. Very few snakes are ever “pure” anything. You have examples that represent the common form within a given range until you get over that next hill, or across the river, or whatever marks the area of predominance of the next typical form next door. They readily breed with each other because they were designed to do that for a gazillion years! Pure means inbred, isolated, representing weakness and in nature is a dead end. Just an opinion, of course.

AMEN!
-----
"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

Yet at the same time "purity" is an attempt to define something that is certainly real, evolution(or adaptation if you prefer). Just because it is diffucult to define doesn't mean it's not worthy of an attempt. Purists are attempting to preserve, share, enjoy, etc. that which nature designed. Yes we cannot do that perfectly all the time but I believe there is alot of merit in it still.

I agree - the best way to preserve what nature designed is to try and preserve some of it - in the wild. National, State, and Regional parks are part of the equation. Unfortunately people need homes, but we don't need a Starbucks every 3 blocks ...

Locality lines are nice to preserve.
Hybrids and crosses though make perfectly acceptable often gorgeous pets for those who want to keep herps as pets - and not necessarily out of a desire to preserve a phenotype that occurs at a specific locality.

Having genes from another species in a snakes family tree does not make it any worse of a pet. It does make for some really neat pets though.
-----
11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.1 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus nasicus (W Hognose)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

I never said anything bad about crosses. I only spoke up because people seem to be saying purity and subspecies are useless concepts.
While we cannot always say with absoluteness when something is a pure example of a subspecies we very often can say when it is not and I think that is what some people are missing. For example breed a normal Cal King from the heart of the range in say central California to a king from southwest of Tuscon and you will have some people say it's pure Cal and some say it's an intergrade. But if you breed a Cal from the heart of the range to a Floridana from the heart of it's range and there is probably not one sensible person that would argue it's pure for either. Yet some people use the "bluriness" of the first example to justify calling unquestionable crosses by a single subspecies name. I see that as a double standard, not just a disagreement as to what constitutes pure.

Yes,.....

Just so we both understand that we're on the EXACT same page,
I agree with all of what you said in regards to how snakes(and other animals for that matter evolve) move around find this mate, or that mate........cross the river on a piece of "driftwood", and introduces it's genes to the other side of the river, and so on,...........I totally agree with everything you stated,.....word for word........animals are ALWAYS evolving,........some noticable changes can take thousands, if not millions of years.

Some,.....not so long at all...........my point being, when I referred to pure, that simply meant "as defined by taxonomy" nothing more,
.....and nothing less,.......not a snake that was crossed with Grey Rat, Sinaloan, "Bubblegum Rat", "brooksi",het for "Ultra-mel" or some other rediculous man-made snake. I appreciate what you posted, along with some others totally!........I hope now you see what I was talking about. There are many folks that have no concept of this at all.

best regards, ~Doug
-----
"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

That's the problem with pure - it means different things to different people in different contexts resulting in confusion
-----
11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.1 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus nasicus (W Hognose)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

Some good points have been made on both "sides"

What I am proposing is a tiered system. First would be locality specific kings (and I'm expanding this to corns too). For instance I knw a breeder of okeetee corns from near the hunt club in SC where they became famous. He does little selective breeding for color, but breeds for locality. These would be "first order" snakes.

The 2nd tier would be snakes produced from known regional stock, Maryland easterns, for example.

The remaining snakes, or those produced by people with a long record of breeding across species and sub-species, looking for "pretty" snakes would be the third and last tier.

You have to keep in mind that people crossing subspecies hoping for that new "killer" morph, have produced thousands of duds thaat get sold to unsuspecting buyers, who then unknowingly pass on the cluttered genes.

So knowing the heritage, or lineage of the snake would be very important!

For people who just want a new "pretty snake"none of this would matter. But for breeders who want to work with animals of known genetics, this would allow them an outlet, AND better prices for their effort.

The analogy from the dog world are all the people breeding puggles, labradoodles, etc. All you need is an acre of land, a trailer home and an old junked car parked out front and your suddenly a certified puggle breeder

There are people who would prefer to buy from reputable lab breeder - one who does not have a bunch of failed labradoodle puppies buried out back.

The new organization name could be: AKCC - The American Kingsnake and Cornsnake Club.

Joe

Joe,

I think you should just stick to dogs and get out of snakes. There is no comaprison. Besides dog breeds are all mutts so there is no AKC as you put it for snakes.

Second you analogies of people breeding hybrids and accusations are not well accepeted here. It shows your lack of expereince and (as suggested by me on an earlier post) you should learn and read a little before making such statements on a public forum or you will get some expected backlash..

Most top breeders will work with locality specific, recessives, hybrids, natural intergrades, crosses and natural hybrids. Until you stop and think about these terms you should be more sensitive to what you are writing down as facts..
-----
"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

Problem is breeding a pure locality Jasper County Okeetee that has beautiful siblings and ugly siblings right from the same clutch. Some are not going to sell as “locality” because to the average guy “they don’t look right”. Is anybody buying ugly locality snakes? Dark south Dade Brooks? There are a lot of them in south Dade! You look in the deli cup and say “that’s a snake I want to have in my collection”. Or, “I’ll pass”. That’s how it works now and forever more. Use your eyeballs. You like what you see, or not. When you hatch out something weird, you repeat the above process. There can hardly be any guarantees in this business. It goes with the turf. Assume nothing is “pure” and judge with your eyeballs. You like what you see or not. It’s funny how someone will love the thing that you do not. Hopefully something for everybody. Don’t take it all so seriously.

Problem is breeding a pure locality Jasper County Okeetee that has beautiful siblings and ugly siblings right from the same clutch. Some are not going to sell as “locality” because to the average guy “they don’t look right”. Is anybody buying ugly locality snakes? Dark south Dade Brooks? There are a lot of them in south Dade! You look in the deli cup and say “that’s a snake I want to have in my collection”. Or, “I’ll pass”. That’s how it works now and forever more. Use your eyeballs. You like what you see, or not. When you hatch out something weird, you repeat the above process. There can hardly be any guarantees in this business. It goes with the turf. Assume nothing is “pure” and judge with your eyeballs. You like what you see or not. It’s funny how someone will love the thing that you do not. Hopefully something for everybody. Don’t take it all so seriously.

YES YES YES. Agreed again on all points!
-----
"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

There is already the ACR for cornsnakes - and that is more than sufficient.

Locality specimens can have that data entered, one a snake is marked as a hybrid - all of its offspring are marked as hybrid.

Any kind of registry for kingsnakes does not need to be fancier than the ACR.

I own two corn snakes and have two more coming.
One of the two I own I registered. His parents are not registered, but I put the breeders stock number into the comment area so that if he ever registers them, I can update mine to reflect its parents.

He is an Abbott line Okeetee but it was not purchased from Lee Abbott.

Someone who wants an Abbott guaranteed not to be outcrossed will see that my corn was hatched by someone other than Lee Abbot and the parents are unknown, so they know that the offspring of my corn is not fully documented as "pure" Abbott line (I think the guy I got mine from bought his breeders from Lee - so if he ever chose to register his, then mine would be documented back to Lee)

The '07 female Abbott I bought will not be registered until next year because I don't want to pay to register her if her adult coloration is not to my liking.

Her parents are also not registered and she came in a deli cup w/o any vendor ID numbers so even if he does register all his corns, she will never trace all the way back to Lee Abbott. I don't care about that, and if that is a problem for people who want to buy my offspring - they can buy somewhere else (IE from Lee).

The two corns I'm receiving are bred by a breeder who has some of his stock registered but not all of it. However, his stock numbers all include his internal code for parents - which means even if the parents of these corns are not registered, they will have "virtual" parents documented so that registered syblings and half syblings are known - and when the breeder finished registering his stock (a very time consuming process if you have hundreds as he does) they will have more of their lineage documented.

Any kind of registry only needs to provide an opportunity to record family history if known. If parents of a snake are not known, start a new node. There is no reason to exclude any registrations. Those who want "pure" can choose to only buy snakes that have lineage that the buyer feels qualifies as "pure" by the buyers standard of purity. The rest of us can buy snakes that we like, if they have a known lineage - great. If it doesn't - we can start a new node with it.

If you want a snake that traces back to wild caught, you can look for snakes who can be traced back to WC in the registry.

If you want a snake w/o a lot of inbreeding, you can see how much inbreeding it has.

That's all that is needed - make things too complex and what you'll end up with is breeders who don't give a damn about the registry.

Over on another forum, a veteran zonata breeder who has written many books and has photos published in herp books of mine that are 15 years old - he doesn't use a single male. He puts his female zonatas in with several different males. That way if a particular male zonata is shooting blanks that year, not too uncommon apparently for zonata in captivity - he hasn't wasted a female, as she will have been with several males.

The upside is he gets several good clutches. The downside - there's no way to know who the father is, so a pedigree would not be possible.

There's also too many documented cases of sperm retention for a pedigree to mean anything if the female has ever been with more than one male.

Also - even the AKC has problems with dishonest breeders who give false information in pedigrees. A piece of paper really only proves that someone provided information, it can not guarantee the information provided was honest.
-----
11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.1 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus nasicus (W Hognose)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

But there is no AKC for dogs since dogs are all mutt breeds.
-----
"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

said the Wolf

>>For instance I knw a breeder of okeetee corns from near the hunt club in SC where they became famous. He does little selective breeding for color, but breeds for locality. These would be "first order" snakes.

Sad to say but Okeetee corns should no longer be considered locality snakes. Do you know how many yazoos have released corns in that area over the last 30 years or so? Not to mention the chucksters that sell snakes "on the roads" to unsuspecting tourists. There is no way I will mention names but I know people (unfortunately) that buy adult corns at expos just to re-sell them to the field herpers that flock to Okeetee. Any of you ever herped Okeetee and not found anything.. only to come across some friendly "local" that just happened to find a nice corn a few hours earlier and offered it to you for a good price? A similar thing is known to occur in greyband country. Anyone that has been in the "industry" long enough already knows this.

Anyway, not sure if this is relevant to the discussion but I wanted to make sure you knew Okeetee corns are about as bunk of a locality as you can get. Your friend's "first order" corns are far from what I'd consider locality pure. Ken

Thats both funny and sad!

After reading what I have here, I'm not sure there is anyway to create a registry that would do what its meant to do - keep out the liars, cheaters, thieves.

Its too bad the industry has come to this - although its never been very good, it seeems to be worse now. And it is too bad we all know people who do the kind of stuff that pulls the whole industry down, but we have no way to get that info out.

Since it is precisely the liars that will lie about the heritage of their animals, a system based on honest reporting doesn't seem promising.

Maybe I'll start a web site where people can post photos of their snakes that obviously were not what was advertised, who they bought them from, etc. If people were unsure (as many are), people with more experience could weigh in with their opinions.

But I'm off to India for a couple weeks now so I have other things to worry about

Joe

well there already is a website like that.

#1 scrub the registry idea.

#2 scrub the pulbic opinion based website idea.

Both have been done and both are no good. These things get started by any know-nothing with access to the internet (yes I mean RichZ).

I for one would much rather read about breeding successes or anything else that furthers herpetological endeavors.

Public opinion based website is a nasty place. Things get out of hand and pretty soon the most base of rumors can become public fact.

This is why we have a democratic society and a judicial system. Internet public opinion leads to more untruths. I have seen people post things about others that are total bunk. Sometimes it is just a way to get back at someone for something in the past.

Again read some archived posts before posting any more stuff about hybrids , purity et al..
-----
"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

No one will make you read it BlueRosey

You say that you would rather read about things that further public knowledge about herps. To me, knowing who is selling what is good information to have.

The internet provides information, not necessarily truth. Readers have to make judgements about what they are reading. But if done right, it is a very powerful way to level the playing field against the crooks in this industry.

I'm sure you agree that is a good thing.

Joe

I've been to Jasper and caught a few snakes right there on the hunt club that were clearly wide-banded "Okeetee" phenotype.

Granted it's been about ten years or so since I've been but I think you're overstating the gene pollution from releasing snakes in Okeetee.

Chris

>>I think you're overstating the gene pollution from releasing snakes in Okeetee.

Unfortunately all it takes is ONE snake and the gene pool is polluted from a "locality" standpoint. Of course to the snakes its no big deal at all and they will not cease to exist as a group. But to the locality "purists" the population is no longer pure. Fact is one of the biggest corn snake breeders in this country has openly admitted to releasing many, many corn snakes in that area over the years, mainly in the 70's/80's. It all boils down to what you want to believe, after all its the internet and we are all experts. Ken

One thing....

"Unfortunately all it takes is ONE snake and the gene pool is polluted from a "locality" standpoint."

Nah. Survivability is low. Even an adult.

Chris

But snakes leave one locality and enter another all the time.
It is called gene flow - and is natural.

The local population doesn't care if it was released or crawled there on its own.

I suspect that when a released animal survives to breed, it is only a few generations before visual indications can be detected anyway - and then it would only be a very small portion of the populations.

btw - I seem to recall earlier this season that Bill Love found a very nice Okeetee not very far from the hunt club. It was either Bill or someone Bill was with. It was posted on another forum, and apparently is now in their breeding colony and may add some genes next year (I think it was a male).

According to people who hunted there - there were always plenty of less than stellar corns found there - it is just the very pretty ones that were publicized.
-----
11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.1 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus nasicus (W Hognose)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

I would love to see something akin to the ACR but for Lampropeltis (or even just Lampropeltis getula).

The difficulty is in the genotype and phenotype arena.

btw - I don't see oddities as necessarily a sign of hybrids or integrades. They can result of outcrossing within subspecies and from line breeding.

But anyway - I'd love to see something like the ACR but for kingsnakes.

It still does not prevent dishonesty though - which is the problem with hybrid breeders who do not identify their stock as hybrids. I'd like it to exist just for the value of family trees being easily searchable etc.
-----
11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.1 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus nasicus (W Hognose)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

....it's easy to sit back and slander someone on an internet forum.

I'll believe someone until I have a reason NOT to.

It's been that way in this business since before the "popular" Internet.

Chris

Who is slandering? I mention aspects of people in all hobbies, not specific to herps. Many hobbies haave specific associations designed to reward what ever aspect of the hobby they feeel is important.

I fully recognize that others don't give a hoot about hybrids and aare happy to buy them. I don't even care if that is their priority - its really OK with me.

But there shoud be some mechanism to identify and REWARD people who are working toward other goals.

In my personal opinion - the trend in this industry to produce pretty snakes has hurt it. But thats just my opinion, you don't hve to share it

Joe

But there shoud be some mechanism to identify and REWARD people who are working toward other goals.

If you mean rewards as in MONEY $$$ , no. Getting w/c snakes and breeding them to sell as pure is not something that should NOT be rewarded. IMO its the simplest and easiets way to say you accomplished something when in fact you have not done a darn thing. Why should that be rewarded? Most of the people who want locilty give them away because they are not worth as much as the efforts of true breeders who work on a project for many many years. Its a mindset that is cool with me and I apprciate those snakes as well. But profit and rewards. heck no.

Locality data is important relevant to a few spp ,. (ex rosy boas, zonata, ect). The general public don't care what part of Africa your Ball Python came from or which house snake or Honduran is from west or south of a continent apart. This really all boils down to a few people who are trying to cash in on an easy breeding program and create a market on a few N amercian spp.

My advice is if you want some locality data and snakes you are sure about go catch them yourself. Thats about the only way you can be sure anyway. A plane ticket to the west coast is a lot less expensive or risk that trying to smuggle in snakes from mexico (illegal) or from Australia or other forign country. Get some legally collected animals and breed them for your own pleasure and then give away the babies. That about sums it up.
-----
"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

>> But there shoud be some mechanism to identify and REWARD people
>> who are working toward other goals.

There is. Customers who like what they have produced.
-----
11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.1 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus nasicus (W Hognose)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

Every so often this question of an AKC type registration comes up and it has been talked about here to exhaustion.

Fist a reccessive trait like hypo brooksi effects the pattern in the visual form. I have said this many times before.Its only in the visual reccessive that you get the abberancies. All the hypos have a broken pattern with spots, stripes. lines and mottling. But if you breed a het to a hypo or a hypo to a normal you will get the classic pattern brooksi in the normal form.

Like this:

The hypos origiunated from s dade co Florida. Some have been outbred to floridana looking types so they are no longer true "brooksi" unless one can trace the stock back through the original breeders. I have kept my hypos pure in the sence I never outbred them to other stock to create hets or unkown hypos.

It boils down to the person who bought the animals asking the right questions. When I sell people a hypo I don't mention mine are from the original $700. animals purchased from back when they first came on the scene. But if some bought them from me and raised them up to produce babies the purchaser from them can trace them back to me IF the person remeber WHO they bought them from.

An AKC type registration is neither realistic or possible since most people will not bother with it. People will buy snakes on how they look and price. Very few want something that traces back to original w/c stock heritage.

Best thing is find out who the animals came from and start tracing back (like a family tree) to avoid possible nefarious animals to be bred to each other. But then the people you sell them to won't be interested and will sell the animals or outcross them anyway.

Hope this helps. Best thing for you is to read some of the other posts in the archives and start tracing back your own stock. But for the most part this is something YOU would do for your own information. If that sort of thing is important ask the breeder. If not then start to recognize what true brooksi are suppoosed to look like and buy with confidence on each look of the animals. We had a discussion lately about hypo brooks originating from 3 lines. The LOVE stock has plain yellow bellies. Doug Beard stock has mottled bellies and Krysco stock is high red . Thats a starting point. Probably the striped version that you see here is a result of crossing two of the above mentioned stock to each other to create more striping.

Nice stiped hypo brooksi by the way. Very nice!
-----
"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

In the discussion on the origins of the hypo in Love and Beard, etc. is it generally accepted as coincidence that these popped up at the same time? I think I recall the Love line was a surprise and popped up a couple of places from snakes that could be traced specifically to their stock? The Beard line is claimed definitely from a wild caught origin? Could you elaborate on any of this stuff?
You might also let people know that it is not so impossible to have local specific projects and the most exotic crosses in the same snake room from the breeders. Those two things are not impossible to keep track of and be honestly represented by a “big breeder”.

Yes they popped up at the same time. But this was back when people were breeding for high yellow normals. The sibling to sibling breeding were going on and that is what happens. There are a lot of reccessive traits in w/c snakes. People just don't collect w/c stock and breed them.. raise the babies up and breed sibling to sibling back to one another to find out. Usually recessives show up when a lots of normal sibs are avaliable and people are interested in breeding them to each other. Evidently the hypo gene is not that rare in w/c stock as is albinism in cornsnakes found in the wild. They are all over the place and the gene is rather common. Look at anerythridtics in corns as well. They are found quite frequently in the wild.

Now Ball pythons. For years people bought captive hatched babies (not captive bred) and people just did not bother with breeding siblings to siblings. People bought Ball Pythons as pets and kept single animals along with unrelated w/c imported stock. Back in 1993-4 a guy started naming the Balls for an extra $10 or $20.and sold them. This created an interest to start breeding different looking normals back to their siblings to create the smae look. But in Balls the reccives also popped out of the holding facilities in AFrica were the gravid female were held until they laid. Then they carted off the adult females for import and waited for the eggs to hatch to sell individually. Problem is them came in HUGE lots of 20,000 per shipment and there was no way to tell if two snakes were siblings. This was a very large scale operation so it was inevitable different reccessives would pop out of those w/c captives in Africa. So the Balls are unusual in that case. Most other snakes don't get collected on such a large scale for import so that recessives pop out of wc stock. Even in nature, snakes that don't travel much (territorial or lack of movement due to habitat) end up breeding sister to brother or sibling to mom in the wild. It was inevitable with Balls to have recessvives to pop ut like they did. But combine the wc eggs hatching in Africa and people starting to breed resulting offspring back to one anbother here there was an explosion of recessives.

In other snakes there has to be an interest in the natural from for people to breed sib to sib for reccessives to pop out of eggs. Until that happens not a high possibilty of getting new morphs out of snakes. Then there are people who beleive that breeding a sib to sib is in some way bad or detrimnetal. These people usually are the ones wanting locality stock and data on snakes. So again, not a big chance of reccesives popping out of these collectors breeding progrmas because they choose not to breed sib to sib. Therefore we have no recessives from those snakes avaliable.
-----
"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

>>Well I gotta ask. What do you know of the heritage of these snakes? Where did the parents come from, and their parents?
>>
>>I know some of you think I'm harping on this subject, but I hope some of you also realize that when our kingsnake offspring gradually become unrecognizable as specific species or subspecies, then the breeders will be screwed.
>>
>>I think the kingsnake is on the verge of becoming the very first "white mouse" of the herp world. When we sell "brooksi" or any other subspecies that has very questionable heritage (like the albino easterns wild caught in NC from the link below)the very credibility of the industry is sinking.
>>
>>I'm not blaming any one. But I know people are now selling "pure" subspecies who have been breeding crosses big time just a few years ago. And honestly, I see phenotypic genetic evidence of prairie kings, corn snakes, cal kings, etc in the offspring sold as brooksi, goini, even getula.
>>
>>Is it time for a sort of AKC for kingsnake breeders? A registry of sorts could root out the unscrupulus breeders (and many of us know who they are)and give added credibility to those who are trying to do it right.
>>
>>What do you all think?
>>
>>Joe

The problem with pedigree is locality and interbreeding, where do you draw the line and who can say where it is drawn? Look at Chondros I like how detailed records are kept and recommend but even still you are not sure of the linage (of every snake) and that is why the word “type” is used to explain where this snake “looks” to be from. We have no idea in the wild what it bred to locality speaking (of course isolation of some species such as a small island can be the exception). It is in my opinion pedigree starts with a W/C snake that breeds in captivity, the line begins with the parents you can’t start before that because you don’t know what that snakes parents breed with. Pedigree doesn’t exist in the wild it is human thinking and something that we decide. I see what you are saying, however no law will ever make the dishonest person honest, that is morals to bad we don’t breed morals in humans lol.
-----
Jason A.
"Long time Herper, first year Breeder `07."

Awesome looking snakes, Karl. They look good to my untrained eyes>

reako45

Here are the adults that produced that clutch.
As far as I know they are pure brooksi.
The first is the female second the male.

Boneyard - They may well be pure. I'm not trying to single you out at all. And as one poster above noted, there isn't anything even wrong with not knowing what your producing - as long as there is truth in advertising.

But for example, if you know where the adults came from and they came from a known hybrid producer, then they probably wouldn't be eligible for any kind of pedigree. The young certainly look lke they have very mixed blood lines.

Tell me - would you expect the odd patterns and diverse colors from pure adults? What species and sub-species do you see in these pretty babies?

If you did happen to buy them from known hybrid breeders then they would probably have to be labeled "pretty snakes" of unknown genetic background. People who don't care about genetics wouldn't care, others would. But their wouldn't be the fraud we see so much of now. (Not by you, I don't have any reason to think your trying to hide anything at all, but others here do and have)

Joe

> But for example, if you know where the adults came from and they
> came from a known hybrid producer, then they probably wouldn't
> be eligible for any kind of pedigree.

Why?
Because someone creates hybrids that automatically makes them guilty of trying to pass off hybrids as pure? You can't produce hybrids and also have pure lines at the same time?

It's the people singing the pure song and dance but have hybrids in the back room that are a problem.
-----
11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.1 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus nasicus (W Hognose)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

Let's say I collected two wild gopher snakes in Lassen County, CA.
I had witnesses to the collection, and photographs of them where they were collected, with GPS data indicating they were collected within a few miles of each other.

In your mind, would I be able to pedigree their young in a snake pedigree system?
-----
11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.1 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus nasicus (W Hognose)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

dont feed the troll funky,,,,,,,,thomas
-----
Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

You said, "But for example, if you know where the adults came from and they came from a known hybrid producer, then they probably wouldn't be eligible for any kind of pedigree. "

Are you saying that if somebody produces hydrids they can not be relied upon to also produce seperate pure line?

Well the Parents look great!

I think after they shed it'll be better to show the TRUE beauty of those snakes.

Can u recall where/who you got your female from... she's a very nice hypo.

~ZF

-----

Royal ReptileZ

I'll try and snap some pics after they shed.

very nice ,,,,,,,,thomas davis
-----
Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com