Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is my only MBK breeder female. I bought her in 99. She has probably produced close to 200 eggs by now. Most of you know I am a morph nut. There's just something incredibly cool about a black glossy snake that makes them every bit as awesome as a neon morph. This gal is in a 3 foot Boaphile cage. She is one of my favorites.



Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

Congratulations Tom!,....I also think those "Poor Man Indigos" are pretty cool!

~Doug

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

congrats! there is something about black snakes for me too looking forward to see hatchlings pics later on.

Wow - that's a nice clutch.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

Tom,

Ain't it great to have snakes that you know that you can count on year after year? That's a pretty big clutch for an MBK - mine usually drops about a dozen eggs.

Tim

Third Eye

What do you mean "Old" Reliable? She's just getting into her breeding prime!

I'm currently visiting a friend who has a gravid female MBK right now that he bought as a CB baby in 1990. She has been pumping out 12-16 eggs a year for about 15 years now, sometimes even double-clutching!

If you want to think about how long ago that was in herp terms, we had to search far and wide by phone (no internet then) and by reading ads in the Chicago Herp Soc bulletin to find cb nigrita because there weren't many produced back then and they sold very quickly. We ended up buying 2.2 babies at $150 each!

People used to charge more for the "black" babies back then as well (does anyone still do that?). We bought the cheap babies which had a faint pattern which of course was completely gone by the time they were 6 months old.

Here's a pick of the male of the pair from recently. He is almost 6 feet long -

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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Yes,....today, the black neonates can sometimes get a few dollars more than the ones with the splendida type pattern visible, or even individual's that have some white flecking. It absolutely amazed me a while back, when I saw a before shot of a hatchling someone got, and a pic of it a few months later, it was VERY questionable as to whether it was even a MBK at all, but the guy bought it anyway. Well, the thing underwent a spectacular ontogenic change to become a killer solid black animal that would garnish any collection!

Yes, lots more to the splendida, MBK thing than meets the eye. I think the MBK is probably just a color variant of splendida,....similar to what brooksi is to a floridana, and not really a separate subspecies, but who really knows?.

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

that's downright nice of you to use a 3' boaphile as a nest box! whooooooo! lol...

great job w/ all the eggs.

daveb

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vote in '08
chris cornell for van halen lead singer...

"Old" ?? Ha ha. Not in the least. When she's 15 years old, then you can call her old. Nice nest box.
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Mark

Tom, some time in the future when you get a chance I'd love to see a photo of your female MBK in hand. She's an impressive king.
Off topic, here's some photos of my two sonorans I got from you. They are doing great. Steve

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I got a rock!
Charlie Brown