Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Not to confuse anyone - there are black rats snakes and there are red rat snakes... The is a red black rat snake. I seem to close down threads on here so I submit Torch to ya'll. Can I be in the club now?
-Blue

OOps..

Dang, I can't get the pic to go..

Seriously? For the love of Pete!!! One last try!!
This should be his body shot...
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k...here goes...
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I quit..
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Here goes nothing...
Link

This is his side profile. The pics look alot more oragne that he is, he's more of a red/burnt orange color.
Link

Are you absolutely SURE it's a pure Black Rat?,...it looks sort of suspiciously like an intergrade of some type to me.

BTW,....there's a "test" forum on the top of the forums page to do lots of test posting so you can get it all straightened out before having to go through all the bogus posts.

best regards, ~Doug

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

there is also a preview post button at the bottom

and it can't be a black rat.....

the saddles aren't square they are like a yellow or glades rat,,,and I have seen alot of shades of orange,salmon and red on a black but never that color orange.

......it has more orange than some of the glades I've seen for sale......LOL

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Too funny,......that was my exact thought as well!

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

I bought him from Don S at South Mt last year. He was sold to me as an erthristic black rat. I thought his pattern was a bit off too but I was assured that he was pure black.
I have some different girls I am going to pair him up with next year to see what pops up and then hold back a few pairs to breed back together to see if the "trait" proves true.
As for the pics, I thought I had it down but I haven't posted many pics and I get the links from photobucket mixed up. I did it well in the test area but then goofed it up here... oops.
Link

Do you mean "erythristic"?

From the coloring and pattern, It looks like an intergrade between an Everglades Rat Snake and a Western Black Rat Snake.

I will still never understand why someone would want a Black rat that wasn't black, but that is just me. Good luck with your breeding projects.

I actually looked at the pattern on one of my black rats....it happens to be light chocolate brown.and some of the saddles in the mid-body area happen to have some elongation along the corners....hmmmm......not like your orange one ,,,but they are not square as I thought they were....

Don S knows his stuff bigtime..sooooooo...another hmmmmmm....

.....I do know a guy working with what he calls "Sunrise" and "Sunset" albino blacks and they are all kinds of yellow and red and oranges......I have a pair from that line and they happen to be chocolate brown,,,with yellow on the throat area....maybe some white too.I gotta look.....they are from breeding a T- amel to a T amel then breeding back the double hets to each other and all and a male he calls copperhead....it has a copper head......cool snake.......

so......

maybe maybe- maybe they are black.....but it sure looks like glades mixed in there by someone......people have all kinds of stuff they know nothing about their past....and with todays' hobby...even wild stuff isn't 100% safe from mixes...

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A guy calls me from the DFW area and says he has 2.2 black rats, het for axanthic (anerythristic). He got them from someone in Louisiana who said the mutation was discovered in Northern Louisiana. He swore they were not linghemieri, but you know how that goes. I traded him a pair of my axanthic Texas rats for one pair of them. The pic you see above is just like the male breeder I have here. Anyway, the first year I put them together, I get albinos, leucistics, two or three colors of the nominate form and axanthics (anerythristics). That's been happening every year since. SO, are they pure whatevers? Dunno, but the guy swore they were pure black rats. Given the variety of products in this line, they're probably part French Poodle. Shrug?
South Mountain Reptiles

Yes,....That pretty much sums that one up for us Don, thanks for swingin' by, and elaborating on that.

~Doug

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

Hello Don............

Thanxx........

.....they're wierd lookin'.........

......cool......good luck......
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Crap! There's poodle in him too? Thanks Don. Like I said, I'm gona test the boy I got off you out next season to see what pops up.
-Blue

OK, maybe I'm the only one that's still in the dark here. Its hard to read sarcasm on the internet so I have to ask.... Don do you still believe these are pure black rats or not? Based on how I interpreted your post above you don't feel they are pure... or did I read it wrong?

dg

I find myself in a position I've seen others in. The guy from whom I got these verified that indeed he got them from the guy in Louisiana. That guy told me personally that the axanthic (anery) he used to make these was captured in N. Louisiana and was black rat. If we go by looks, I don't think these satisfy the form of black rat OR Texas rat. Add to that the fact that they seem to have a rainbow of colors, in addition to the recessives that were never mentioned in my discussions with the breeder, and it does smell like something's wrong.

Not having heavy experience in these ssp of rat snakes, I yield to your opinion, Dwight. Again, I have NO information that contradicts what the breeder told me, but I'm not naive enough to ignore popular opinion. I own one pair of these and never planned to build a rat snake empire with them. If you (or anyone else) requires photographs to help with identification, just ask.

Don
South Mountain Reptiles

I think I know where you are coming from on this Don. I too have been in similar situations in regards to animals. Perfect example were the "tangerine hypos" that I posted in this thread. I got them from someone that I developed a fairly good rapport and friendship with over the years. After working with the animals for a while, something just didn't seem right in my opinion. But that's where it becomes difficult. On one hand you don't want to offend anyone/lose a friendship by questioning their animals and on the other you don't want to have animals that you don't feel "right" about... if that makes any sense.

Thanks for posting Don.

dg

That is precisely the position I'm taking. Without proof they aren't what they were reported to be, I just can't definitively come out and say they are fakes. As it is with many snake species, if it doesn't look like what it was sold as, it likely is not.

In a WALGREENS world, nobody would lie about this stuff and we could trust everything we read/hear.
South Mountain Reptiles

>>This is his side profile. The pics look alot more oragne that he is, he's more of a red/burnt orange color.
>>Link

Your snake looks like what is called a "tangerine hypo" Texas rat snake. Terry Walter originated the line (AFAIK) and Don might have gotten the snake from him (or someone else with Terry's stock.)

I had several of those from Terry a few years back, maybe I can dig up some pics and post them here.

dg

Yeah, okay, I can certainly see it being a Texas, rather than a Black Rat. Sure does have an awefully small close together "H" pattern for most Texas', but nonetheless, a Texas is much more believable here in this case. After all, orange is a typical pigment in the color scheme of many Texas Rats to some degree.

best regards, ~Doug

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

Here's a half Black half Texas with killer orange!!!

Yeah,...I've known about those "scaleless" BHB animals,....I was under the impression that they were 100% Texas,...are they indeed known to be intergrades?

best regards, ~Doug

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

I can see what Doug is talking about with the color when looking at his Texas pic. My issue with that would be that he doesn't hiss, tail rattle or attempt to bite at all. Very unlike a Texas, but if you go with the leuci rats - that they aren't pure blacks but mixed with Texas rats, they too are much calmer than the typical Texas rat. So that could explain his calm behaviour.
I was very addiment on this snake being a pure black rat and Don said that it was. I purchased a few different blacks off of him with in the same time frame a normal het for albino, and leuci female and this guy.
So to prove him out I am thnking that I should put him with a normal female - should produce normal black rats, and an albino black rat??? That would be just in case he does prove out so I can have killer albinos later on down the road. I don't want to mix him with a Tx or a glades unless you guys think that could be a decideing factor on what he realy is.
Thanks,
-Blue

Well, although a good majority of Texas Rats are indeed just plain nasty, it certainly doesn't mean that ALL Texas Rat's ARE, or HAVE to be nasty, because there are some that definitely aren't mean, and quite handleable, especially providing that they've been continuously handled since they were young.

That being said, if these are indeed what Dwight described as being, i.e., a "tangerine hypo", then if you bred it to a known normal phenotype animal, you would get ALL heterozygous(recessive gene carriers) for the said trait(tang.hypo" providing that is a genetic recessive trait, which I assume it is(like other colubrid traits). Meaning that ALL the offspring would be normal "looking", but would carry the hidden recessive trait for "tangerine hypo".

In any case, it's an interesting animal. To be quite honest, if it were ME, I would contact both Don S., AND Walter Smith to AGAIN get the absolute lowdown on this animal,.....that way it can aleviate a LOT of guess-work here.

anyway, hope this helps just a little!

best regards, ~Doug

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

Hate when that happens!

~Doug

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

>>I can see what Doug is talking about with the color when looking at his Texas pic. My issue with that would be that he doesn't hiss, tail rattle or attempt to bite at all. Very unlike a Texas, but if you go with the leuci rats - that they aren't pure blacks but mixed with Texas rats, they too are much calmer than the typical Texas rat. So that could explain his calm behaviour.
>>I was very addiment on this snake being a pure black rat and Don said that it was. I purchased a few different blacks off of him with in the same time frame a normal het for albino, and leuci female and this guy.
>>So to prove him out I am thnking that I should put him with a normal female - should produce normal black rats, and an albino black rat??? That would be just in case he does prove out so I can have killer albinos later on down the road. I don't want to mix him with a Tx or a glades unless you guys think that could be a decideing factor on what he realy is.
>>Thanks,
>>-Blue

I look at it like this...If Don says it is pure black rat I have no doubt that it is indeed pure black rat.
Don keeps excellent records and simply does not say something is pure if he isn't certain. If there is any doubt he will tell you.
Just because it doesn't look "right" doesn't mean it can't be pure black rat.
By all means, ask Don again but if he says pure then take it to be pure.
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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"Resistance is futile"
Jimmy Johnson
(Draybar)
Draybars Snakes

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I wish it would have come just a little sooner.....LOL
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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"Resistance is futile"
Jimmy Johnson
(Draybar)
Draybars Snakes

_____

Here is an old image of some tangerine hypo Texas rats that I got from Terry Walter. Sorry for the terrible quality, this image was scanned in from a print taken before digital cameras were popular. Does your snake resemble these animals? I have some other pics that I scanned in but I'm having trouble with uploading images to photobucket at the moment.

dg

Hmmm... They look exactly like all the Glades x TX crossbreeds that I have seen. Are you sure about their origin?

>>Hmmm... They look exactly like all the Glades x TX crossbreeds that I have seen. Are you sure about their origin?

Good call, I'm not sure about their origin. That's why I stopped working with them. I didn't want to offend the good friend that I got them from but at the same time I wasn't too convinced they were pure. It was a difficult situation to be in.

Here are some more pictures of the tangerine hypos that I used to have:

subadult male (sorry for the bad quality, these are old prints scanned in)

The males that I had were much lighter than the females, even when young. Here is another pic of the same snake:

Here is an adult female (digital pic this time)

dg

There's definately a lot of Glades in the mix, the third picture really gives it away. Hack, the animals in the upper two pictures could easilly have passed for pure juvenile Glades.

They are beautiful though

I'm having problems being convinced that those guys are "all" Texas Rat, but what do I know,.......I've only been in the hobby for just over four decades.

Not to discredit you, or anyone else involved, but I would need to see ALL the parental lineage that lead up to those offspring before I would be convinced one way or the other.

Like Herman mentioned, they look VERY suspect of having "rossalleni"(or even possibly quadrivittata)introduced somewhere along the line.

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

>>I'm having problems being convinced that those guys are "all" Texas Rat, but what do I know,.......I've only been in the hobby for just over four decades.
>>
>> Not to discredit you, or anyone else involved, but I would need to see ALL the parental lineage that lead up to those offspring before I would be convinced one way or the other.
>>
>> Like Herman mentioned, they look VERY suspect of having "rossalleni"(or even possibly quadrivittata)introduced somewhere along the line.

Wow Doug.. four decades.. that's a long time. Maybe you can post some pics of your Texas x rossalleni (quadrivittata) animals so we can make a comparison? That's one cross that I've yet to try but might in the future. Thanks in advance.

dg

Dwight,....To be quite honest, I don't, nor have I ever knowingly ever made a practice of producing intergrades, or hybrids, or crosses of any kind. Certainly I'm not just talking "ratsnakes" here, as I have many other species that I've been concentrating on, mostly milksnakes(triangulum). I have been trying to endorse, and propagate the purest forms of certain snakes for many years now. To me, there's no real trick to breeding two snakes(of whatever type)and making strange combinations of colors and/or patterns, it's keeping them as pure as humanly possible and getting interesting things that is the real challenge, and the most interesting and rewarding to me.

Especially in recent years, there's so many species that are crossed into one another that in MANY cases, it's virtually impossible to discern what kind of snake you're looking at. All this seems to do in my opinion is "water-down" many of the real deal pure lines of animals in the hobby. When people show me stuff like ruthveni x mex mex x campbelli x cornsnake crosses, I can only shake my head in disgust,....because then, it's no longer a snake of ANY kind, it's just a "mut" snake. Sure!, some "look" interesting, but all they have any real potential to do, is then further dilute much of the "real" stuff in the hobby that so many have worked so hard to keep pure.

The sad thing is,.....in the future, people will walk into reptile shows, and see little deli cups on tables that are simply labeled "snake".

Certainly this is just my opinion,......but luckily it's an opinion that is still shared by a few. Even the people that seem to have the need to make crazy combinations of species/ssp. need to start with pure animals, or THEY THEMSELVES won't even know what they're hibridizing!..LOL!

Pure stuff is the REAL challenge to find anymore. Anyway, I hope I didn't offend anyone in the process of this, as that is definitely not my intent, I'm simply stating the way I feel about the hobby now,.......I see SO SO many snakes that are unidentifiable in recent years that it almost makes me sick. It seems that many are not ever satisfied with the crosses they make, so as soon as they're bored of a crossed project, they move on to the next type of snake pairing they can ruin. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Again, I'm not stating ANY of this at you directly, I'm saying this as my opinion of what I see as a "WHOLE" in the entire snake hobby today.

Anyhoo, that's just my purist take on things..LOL! of course there are others that will sternly disagree, and there are others that will sternly AGREE,....this sort of thing will never be agreed upon across the board, it's just like politics!..LOL!

best regards, ~Doug

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

Mine looks almost exactly like the snakes you have pictured in the post from the 26th of April. Again, the sides are the only difference I can see.
I think I will keep this guy out of the breeding line up for another year. I want to see some adult colors before I attempt to breed him with any type of rat snake. Like Doug, I love the pure rat snakes. I am upset that this isn't what I originaly purchased but he is a great snake so no harm no foul there. I just don't want to produce any more muts than need be (unless you want a few to play with Dwight).
Thanks to everyone who helped on this thread and I will (try to) post pics of this guy as he grows. If you have any more guesses, let me know!
-Blue

But even the serious hybridizers involved in breeding projects often have the same purist attitude you have Doug. At least as far as knowing the exact percentages of all the contributng species are. It's necesary if the person wants to produce a true breeding apearance in a cross because they need a diverse gene pool from each species contributing in the same ratio's.

It's the lazy or irresponsible breeders/sellers that cause the real problems. We've all seen babies that were mislabeled at pet stores or sometimes at shows and every time one of those is used as a "pure" breeder it dillutes the genetic identity of that species in the hobby.

Sean.
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1.1 BRB
1.1 Triple Het TPRS's
0.1 Silver TPRS
1.1 Amel Bloodred Corns
0.1 Abbott Okeetee Corn
0.1 Blizzard Bloodred Corn
1.1 Thayeri Kingsnakes
0.1 Reeve's Turtle
0.2 Amstaff's
1.0 Pudytat

No matter how careful someone might "try" to be regarding percentages of what were bred with what in the very beginning of a project, etc,...what inevitably happens is that the large percentage of the offspring of these breeding trials/experiments will get sold to whoever, and are later bred to whatever by the following buyers. Then THOSE next buyers/breeders didn't write down the info from the original breeder, or they misunderstood what they were told by the previous guy regarding which animals were used, or they weren't told correct information down the line of whatever subsequent breeding of whatever, or they just don't care at all in the first place,and just care about what it looks like....so the ultimate outcome basically remains the same, that later on, they have, can, and do cause problems regarding pure lineage animals in the hobby. Now if they were never sold to the general public to do whatever with, there wouldn't be a big problem, but that certainly can't, and doesn't happen at all realistically.

If everyone that had these types of animals wore a white lab coat and carried a clipboard and kept absolute accurate track of ALL data and percentages, and didn't have the main goal of selling them to any Tom, Dick, or Harry, that would be one thing, but these snakes are sold to anyone and everyone that has a few bucks in his/her wallet, and many of those people will breed those snakes(whatever they might be) to whatever breeding combination that seems interesting to them at the time.

What my main point I'm trying to make here is, it's not necessarily an immediate problem, but will always make one somewere down the line,...this is just the way the "dynamics" of the hobby seems to work today.

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

I totally agree but I still put the majority of the blame on the irresponsible/lazy breeders and sellers. I'd lump those recieving the acurately identifified animals but then "fprgetting" or breeding with something else or not labeling offspring with exact percentages into that irresponsible/lazy category. But I do agree with your overall analysis.

Sean.
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1.1 BRB
1.1 Triple Het TPRS's
0.1 Silver TPRS
1.1 Amel Bloodred Corns
0.1 Abbott Okeetee Corn
0.1 Blizzard Bloodred Corn
1.1 Thayeri Kingsnakes
0.1 Reeve's Turtle
0.2 Amstaff's
1.0 Pudytat

These actually look like the "motleys" that terry started working with.
The Motleys I believe branch from the tangerine gene, if i remember Terry's words correctly.