Reptile & Amphibian Forums

we managed photos, still working on the real thing....maybe some day.........

how about "Larry"?

Wow! What are odds? You actually got it, that is LARRY! Did somebody tell you? Amazing..........

Larry is a Fox snake X tripple het san diego gopher X transpecos copper head cross.............enjoy! I am thinking of out crossing him to a LA pine X deppei mix female next year! What do you guys think?

gibsoni?

It looks like some sort of tprXpit cross, or photoshop?
Let me know if WTF is ok>

the coveted gibsoni but larry was a good answer too. lol!

John ...how close are you to putting a breeding group together??

We brought back a male and two females and have all the proper permits and documentation both from Guatemala and USFWS. The guy who financed the trip and organized it all has the snakes. They are currently at his facility in Los Angeles. I understand that they have been eating rat pups sporadically. All the snakes were quite thin so I think he will not attempt to breed them this year. The snakes are part of a research project studying genetic relationships and also general life history aspects of this little known ssp.

We went down during the wrong time of year and did not see any gibsoni in the wild. We had some great guides and searched all day for over a week but did not find any. I am used to herping the midwest USA where you go out and find an old house or barn, dump site, rock pile, or some other debris....not so in Guatemala. All scrap wood is burned, there are no rock piles, and any and every scrap of building material like tin is used for building! The habitat is not typical Pituophis habitat but rather consists of relatively dense previously cut over 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. re-growth succesional oak, pine, and upland tropical forest with heavy agricultural disturbance in the form of coffee plantations, corn/bean fields and livestock grazing. The animal pictured is from the live collection at a small educational facility near Guatemala City. The locals pretty much kill any snake upon contact so these folks are trying to educate the masses to be more tolerant.

The common name for gibsoni in Guatemala is "musaquate de tierra freo" or "boa of the cold land". Everyone kept taking us to boas and of course as many of you may have encountered while asking "the locals" about good snake spots, any place that someone had ever seen a snake became " this area is loaded with snakes"...ie. one was seen there by some guy's uncle 6 years ago! Very frustrating but expected.

I am cautiously optomistic. This will be the third time live gibsoni have been in the states w/in the past 15 years. the first group never ate well and finally all died, the secound group layed eggs twice, seemed to be doing well but ultimatey never reproduced and died.

Keep your fingers crossed and maybe gibsoni will be available sometime in the next 3-4 years!

I am in constant contact with the owner and when there is news on these guys I will post updates.

Wow! gibsoni......finally

great reporting john, thanks! very interesting indeed! re: lack of ac, a longtime ago, my 10 year old nephew returned from a trip to the mountains. when i asked him how the herping went he said, 'it sucked, there's no trash piles up there.' haha....

Great story...I figured there had to be one.....perhaps the most interesting post of the year.