Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi Guys;

anybody out there working with these guys??? Saw some for sale at the Columbia Show last year when I was there with Dwight Good & kinda wish now I had bought a pair. I was also wondering if these guys ARE the real deal OR if a lil Leu. Texas didn't contribute somewhat???

Anyone's thoughts???

Thanx
Dean

I have a year old pair that I am raising.I was told that they are the decendants of a wild caught animal from either Erie Pa. or Maryland.They do not have "bug eyes".The person who hooked me up with them tells me they are "pure" black rats and I beleive him.
One observation I have made while looking at leucistic black vs. texas rats (hatchlings) at a few herp.shows is that the texans consistantly had larger heads than the blacks.I don't know if that means anything,just my take on it.
Excuse the "fuzzy" pic. They really do not have pink eyes.They are more of a blueish color.

>>I was also wondering if these guys ARE the real deal OR if a lil Leu. Texas didn't contribute somewhat???
>>
>>Anyone's thoughts???

My thought is that this topic has been beaten to death over the years. I have my own opinion/thoughts/beliefs etc on this matter but will not repost those here. Do a search on the old forum archives and you should find many, many posts on this exact topic. In addition to the online discussions, go to a library and read some of Dr. Bechtel's articles on obsoleta mutations. The herplit/bibliomania site should be able to help you locate the citations.

In a nutshell, believe what you want to believe!! Its your money, right?? LOL.
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Dwight Good
http://www.kingsnake.com/obsoleta

Like amelanism and anerythrism, leucism may potentially occur in any species of animal. It is a much rarer mutation, but it certainly isn't specific to Texas rats alone. I think it is quite possible that it may have originated as a spontaneous mutation in a pure black rat. Proving it, one way or the other, is something that would be very hard to do. Possibly DNA analysis could provide some clues, but maybe not a definitive answer.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that it didn't spontaneously arise in blacks, then one has to believe that it is a lindheimeri intergrade. If this is the case, then one has to ask, does it really matter? We know that there are many places where obsoletus subspecies naturally intergrade, and we don't get terribly hung up on that fact when we're dealing with WC animals, so why is it such a big deal when the animals are CB?

Suppose then, that some time in the past somebody mated a LTR to a black, then mated their offspring together to produce a clutch of 50% intergrades in which 1:3 of the babies were leucy. Taking one of those leucy babies and breeding it to a pure black, the resulting clutch consisted of babies that were all 75% pure blacks, and all het for leucy. Breeding two of them togetehr, again yielded a clutch of 1:3 leucistics, but these were 75% pure black. Repeating that process, the third result would be leucys that were 87% pure black, the fourth would be babies 94% pure, and the fifth 97%. At 97% purity, I think that it no longer matters where the leucy gene originated, because 97% purity is probably as high as it gets in a lot of the subspecies foundation stock anyhow (BTW, I estimate that it would take about 30 years to achieve this level, allowing three years per generation). Just my POV, and probably not worth much.

As Dwight has stated, this topic has been well covered in the past.
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tricia

I've been working with them for the past 7 years or so now. As a matter of fact, those might have been my babies that you were looking at last year. Dwight has his opinions, I have mine. We just agree to disagree for now. If you want any more info, email me. I don't want to take up any more forum space on this topic, but will gladly share my knowledge on the subject, if you want it. Also, I will have some more leucistic blacks available this year. Email me on that also.

Derek B

Thanx for your response...... probably was your's Derek but I was speaking to a lady at the booth as far as I know they were the only ones I saw at that show, wasn't there for that long just the Saturday morning & was headed back to Canada with some 60 snakes in tow.

Would mind seeing more of your stuff & lbrat's too Thanx again!!!!

Dean