Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Since Ralph posted pics of his Va. Beach easterns and Outer Banks kings, I'll show a few pics of my new additions. Here is a pair of Va. Beach easterns I picked up from Howie Sherman yesterday. I had a great time not only picking out my animals, but seeing Howie's awesome collection. Thanks Howie, we had a great time.
First pic is the male, second is the female.

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SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS

hey Steve. was great hanging out with you and Ralph as well. look forward to seeing you guys at the Richmond show. later,Howie

WOW. Gotta love those Pungo Ridge animals. Good history on the local too. Google "Pungo Ridge" Virginia for some good history of the area.

Thanks Tony for the information. Funny thing is I remember a very wide banded, white chained eastern king that was pictured on Keith's old webpage, "Eastern King Resourse site" that had a Pungo Ridge animal pictured under the Va. locality section. Now that you mention it, I remember asking Keith where Pungo Ridge was, and he had told me Va. Beach and I think he said it was one of Howie's animals.
On a different note Tony, I was down your way a couple of weeks ago on vacation and found this beauty in Dare co. NC. The sad part of it was he was a DOR. First Mud snake I've seen in the wild dead or alive. The blk rat was also in Dare co.

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SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS

It most likely was one of Howies. He and I are the only ones that use the Pungo Ridge name. In a twist of irony though I'm often seen as the non-local guy yet I came up with the name. Basically the ridge is an escarpment. It runs north south and is characterized by high well-drained sandy soils. You find the highest percentage of really nice wide banded black and white easterns along the ridge. You can find nice ones in the swamps too but in my experience not with the same frequency. We started trying to get the wide banded kings to breed true by breeding within the locality but found that it pretty much didn’t matter what the parents looked. Only about 20% or so of the neonates would be wide banded. The rest would be average to thin banded. To me the odd thing was that along the ridge clean wide banded animals clearly outnumbered thinner banded specimens. I’ve always caulked this discrepancy up to a few possibilities:

Collection bias as most of my time was spent collecting in open grassy areas.

As strong dispersers easterns rely on a level of variability and perhaps local selection pressures were not sufficient to override their root genetic programming.

Lastly perhaps there is an incubation issue at work. Steve Hammock had an interesting theory about drier incubation causing lighter colored neonates. There might be something along these lines at work effecting bandwidth.

In all my years I've only ever come across one live mud snake on the road though DORs are common. Along the same lines I did uncover a nice rainbow snake in Currituck this year.

It's interesting to hear you say that, knowing that you've done it for years.

I have found that my easterns will pretty much breed true, wide bands beget wide bands. The ones that I have always bred are from the Chesapeake area, though.

The thin bands are more of a rarity from those breedings, although the Currituck ones seem to throw whatever.

I'll bet that there are unexpressed alelles present.

Chris

Don't know Chris. I’ve little experience actually breeding Chesapeake and Currituck animals. Anymore, I only keep easterns off of construction sites to send them to guys (no charge) who are into locality kings because I don’t have the cage space, am unwilling to expand the collection or get rid of another project in order to make room to work with easterns. I’m even sending off my Northampton animals to Brad B. which is killing me! If they weren’t already promised I’d…. never mind. Ever notice that keeping snakes is a sickness!

Anyway, I believe Howie's experience with VA Beach animals mirrors mine. There really isn't any barrier between these populations but topography in Chesapeake is, to say the least, less diverse, it’s all flat, low and most is poorly drained. Perhaps there is a positive correlation between topography and phenotype. Note there are a few escarpments running through southern Currituck too and you indicate a level of clutch variability in this population as well. Interesting.

maybe we can consult Gopher to dig up some new information?

is he still available in only the early morning and late evening hours?

It should be mantioned here that were it not for "Beaver" there is a LOT of us who wouldn't even be DOING this (at least to the degree that we are).

He sold me my first greyband in '91.

I love that guy.

He's awesome.

Chris

and let us not forget that he is one of the founding fathers of heavy metal.

I'm not that person anymore.

Jesus picked me up and dusted me off and now
I am praying and trying to tell others what He has done for me.

I hope I am forgiven for all of the horrible things I said in a drunken stupor (although fully responsible for).

Chris

and i hope you know that i'm just kidding around as is my wont to do. Never any ill will here, Chris. and by the way, Beav is one of my best friends and he deserves all the kudos you have given him. but if your friends can't insult you, who can? "why cant we all just get along?"- attributed to some black gentleman in los angeles just before he got the snot beat out of him

You've always had a great outlook and I am glad to know I didn't sever anything permanent with anyone.

I still remember that cool deal you did me on those subocs way back when at Cheers.

I might make it up to the wing place at some point (sans alcohol, I can be fairly likable).

Chris

lol. and thereby hangs a nickname. Crepuscular Gopher. i love it