Many years ago, I bought a snake "sight-unseen", that was allegedly an imported "stuarti" from a local pet shop in South Florida.
It was a VERY dull, obscured looking adult female. She was so dark that most all of the white inner bands where totally obliterated with melanin, and the RBR's were also extremely dark and dull. The pattern on her head and snout were also very dark,...to the point you could barely discern a pattern. She almost looked "uni-colored". It's now been so long ago, I can't quite remember her snout band features, and I never got a photo of her. Additionally, there's also no way to know what the sire looked like either!
She was very stubborn. and wouldn't eat, no matter what tricks I used on her. Well, a few more weeks into this thing, I finally found out why........she was gravid, and I didn't even realize it at the time, because I held her so little in hopes of her eventually eating. Anyway, she laid five good looking viable eggs one day for me. I was very happy with this situation(six snakes for the price of one!..LOL).......Sadly, the female died soon after laying the eggs, and I was pretty bummed over it, so I concentrated on getting those five eggs she laid to hatch!............approx 65 days later,...Bingo!!, new hatchlings!, and they were VERY nice and clean looking too!, I was NEVER quite able to put my finger on what ssp. these things were, as I stated earlier I didn't know who fathered the clutch, and the mother didn't really look like a stuarti either.
In any case, these few pics are the results of some of those five eggs she laid!......they all had 16-17 red body rings, and variable snout bands, one or two even had the "poly-like" nasal patches.
I showed one, or two of these to Scott Ballard, and Jeff Hardwick.....and we all basically concluded that they resembled oligozona,........but without knowing ANYTHING about the sire, or even what the mother was, it's quite impossible to claim they are anything other than generic milks. The babies stayed exceptionally clean too, until I sold them to unknown buyers at a few shows later on.
Anyway, I figured some of you guys could appreciate the story.
~Doug
ps,....I sure wish I still had them!..LOL
-----
"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"
