Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My trip out to AZ last year and four day hikes up into the mountains yielded not one pyro. But a friend that has bred them since the early 70's gave me a few of these.

Love the orange/red on this one

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..Doug
~ aka dougsnake

Doug,

absolutely beautiful. I had some awesome Santa Ritas back in the mid-90's from Don Wilson. Wish i'd never sold 'em off in '02. Sigh -- hindsight is always 20/20. But that snake seems to be voiding on you my good man -- why not send that defect on over here......

Jerry Kruse

Those are sweet!,.....Are those actually Huachuca(L.p.woodini)?

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

Nooo man, those are definitely Ritas (pyro pyro) for sure. Woodini are a bit more distinctive with fewer triads and, at times, wider white. Also, you would see red on the head very infrequently on woodini. The red "eyebrows", if you will, are a classic trademark of SR pyros. Those are just beautiful. I'm nabbing a nice pair of woodini this year and I'll post pics when they get here. Doug, more pics please.....

Jerry Kruse

Thanks Jerry!....

I haven't taken any new pics for a while,.....so I'll have to see what I can come up with soon.

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

Sorry guys, but in reality, woodeni was pyros from southern az. not one mountain range. They occur from the Quinlands in the west, dragoons and the Bisbee area in the east.

East of that, they are said to be pyro pyro.

But, the real reality is, there is no such thing as Woodeni(right from Bill Woodens mouth) As you can find high triad and low triade counts in all the southern mountains.

You can even find high triad count Knoblocki types. And infralabellis(sp) in all the southern mountains.

In fact, pattern and color has variation from canyon to canyon. muchless range to range. But all in all, it overlaps.

This is from exstensive field work in these areas as well as working with many other field biologists.

To the point, the discriptions that seperated the different subspecies, used 55 individuals from the entire range. Often having no specimens from major ranges. Mostly a handful or one, from most localities.

Consider thats from Utah to central mex. Which includes thousands of isolated mountain ranges. So those discriptions are vague at best. Good luck

Funny, that something technically IS, is not always what we call them.

For a long time Woodini "existed" and hobbiest adopted the term, assuming a specific range of locals and an associated phenotype.

Have no doubt that woodini is not valid for wild populations. Never really thought it was but I think its a fine monicur for captive lineages originating from specified locals that through selective breeding reliably exhibit the proper or desired band count.

since I can't seem to touch Frank's posting, maybe I could ask you to refer me to additional literature on pyromelana. It seems to be my understanding that the "woodini" nomenclature had been removed in the earlier portion of the turn of the century (2002/2003???). I'd like to get more specific information on all this taxonomic change as I'd been entrenched in graduate studies for several years back then and have obviously missed out on some developments. Nothing like a little catching up. Hope to see you at Howie's place in September as I'm planning on coming back down. Thanks buddy.

Jerry Kruse

Jerry I've never been one good at looking up the lit on this stuff so I can't help you there. Its been about a decade since they changed the status of these but I still think the moniker applies to established captive lineages. Technically there is no taxonomic difference between even quite distinct locals of many species we work with and that doesn't stop us from using the different names so why should this be different? If from a captive context it helps identify originating local and anticipated phenotype why not continue to use it?

I must say however that I tend to be more receptive to studies that seem to conclude that forms are more related than less so. This would particularly be the case for montain species like pyros as their current geographic isolation is, in my view, a very recent development when you consider the evolutionary timetable. Given a cooling climate instead of a warming one, these disjunct populations could once again experience gene flow as they start to come down from the elevations and once again make contact in the foot hills and even the plains. Maybe it's just me but I like to look at life on earth as constantly evolving instead of seeing it as a static snap shot of where things currently are.

I hope we can hook up this September too. My life is wildly hectic but the wife and I have been working at ways to slow down a bit to allow more time for friends and family. Thus far the effort has mostly been on my end but she is beginning to see the need now as well.

If your saying "Woodeni" is a captive color morph, then you can say that. But if your saying the "woodeni" color morphs are exclusive to a certain local, then your wrong and a local was mentioned in the original.

They are indeed inclusive to many locals across southern ariz and New Mexico. Cheers

nothing like a little catching up. We learn a little something every day, especially when information is updated. I needed the updating, so thanks. I'm curious as to what else I'm not up-to-the-minute on. For my next degree I'll be sure to stick with the times while I'm entrenched in academia. Frank, if you could point me to some literature/studies, much appreciated.

Jerry Kruse

Here's a L. p. "woodini" I found last year. It's kinda hard to tell, but the white and black rings expands ever so slightly along the spine, creating the classic Huachucas animals' look.

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Diego

Thanks for the info you guys!,......I was aware of the general meristical difference with the wider, lower band-count, etc...., but wasn't sure at all with locality variation, etc..., and I wasn't sure exactly were the Santa Ritas was in relation to other known areas of pyro habitat.

So many books depict and describe the wrong animal as you guys well know...LOL!

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

FR is right. The "woodini" ssp. was sunk a while back, but many hobbyists still cling to it in order to describe the lower/wider band count individuals.

Also, it is ridiculous how variable these animals are even within one population. Take the north central az pyros. They tend to have a lot of black crossovers, making them generally unattractive animals, yet I've seen some wild caught specimens from the same areas that look as nice as the pair posted above, if not nicer. And then when you pair up the localities, the CB animals tend to have cleaner patterns. There's a whole lot going on with these genetics that we don't really know much about, I think...
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Diego

I can certainly understand all that you mentioned,...and it only sounds logical to me that they would be highly variable as well.

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

Wow, I wish I had a friend that gave away cool snakes when I strike out herpin'! Those are sweet snakes to boot!
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Todd Hughes

This is a sybling to the other one , both girls

Its amazing how fast they grow compared to my kansas milks. This snake is not a year old yet and it's the size of a three year old milk snake

Here is a snake I found in august 2000 in the santa ritas. As you can see its nothing like the ones i got last year

Jerry next time your near New Rochelle let me know.I'll show you the collection.
Email me Jerry
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..Doug
~ aka dougsnake

Hey I went to the Ritas this year looking for pyros and all I found were some ugly green snakes! What do I get as my consolation??

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Diego

I think that photo is good proof of your consolation prize!..........nice looking triaspis, bro!

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

Hah, what do you want?, lol!
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Todd Hughes

I want a nice clean pair of locality pyros, dammit!!
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Diego