Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all -
guess I'm technically a newbie on this forum, although I did post a few months ago with some frantic worried-mother type questions (thanks to everyone who answered me!)
I'm a college student in TN, and have fallen in good graces with the biology department at my university allowing me to keep my three snakes in the science building. Currently I have 1.1 BRB (Radio and Audrey) and 1.0 African egg eater (Loki) who's proving a challenge, as he's still on finch eggs, but is about the cutest thing you'll ever see.
I'm posting with a question/observation about pattern morphs... Since Radio is the only BRB I've seen in person until my first reptile show a few weeks ago (when I got Audrey) I thought he was the norm. I was totally surprised when Audrey's breeder pointed out her crescents to me, but a little research upon my return home explained why: Radio is a complete eclipse - not even a speck of color in his side spots (I'll try to get a few pics up later).
Is this a particularly special or rare morph, and how genetic is it? Is it something bred for, or a luck-of-the-draw type thing? I wish I had a little more info about Radio's background, but I got him as a birthday gift (he's about 9 months old now).

(The first pic is Audrey, the second 2 are Radio - they're not great quality, but you can see his patterning)

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1.1 BRB (Radio & Audrey)
1.0 African egg eater (Loki)

Hi and welcome (back) to the forum!!

Eclipse is a description I latched onto for describing the exact animal you have. I produced several in 2005 and a few more in 2006 and 2007. So far it appears to be a "phase" not a single gene morph. By Phase I mean a line bred or polygenic trait, not related to one single gene. I don't know if it's been done yet but I suspect a eclipse X eclipse breeding would yield a higher percentage of eclipse phase babies but also some with some degree of crescenting.

My fav eclipse I produced is Amber, one of my 2005 holdbacks.

Amber as a baby...

Nice looking BRB's BTW.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Wow, she is beautiful. Have you noticed eclipse spots changing with maturity, i.e. filling out, or getting darker? Radio's seem to get darker all the time. I can't wait until he's big enough to breed so I can explore this more...
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1.1 BRB (Radio & Audrey)
1.0 African egg eater (Loki)

Like all BRB's the colors change as they mature, some more so than others.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Love the color on Audrey, the snake in the first photo. Great looking pair of boas.

reako45

Nice Brb's.

Do you have a pic of your African egg eater ?

I was wondering how large he/she is ?

I have a friend with a small one that eats finch eggs (he has a pair of zebra finches for the purpose)as well, but he got a few bird eggs from someone that were 5 times larger then a finch egg and it ate it with ease. Depending on the size of your egg eater you may have noticed he eats those finch eggs with ease.

Please post a pic of your Dasypeltis.

>>Hi all -
>>guess I'm technically a newbie on this forum, although I did post a few months ago with some frantic worried-mother type questions (thanks to everyone who answered me!)
>>I'm a college student in TN, and have fallen in good graces with the biology department at my university allowing me to keep my three snakes in the science building. Currently I have 1.1 BRB (Radio and Audrey) and 1.0 African egg eater (Loki) who's proving a challenge, as he's still on finch eggs, but is about the cutest thing you'll ever see.
>>I'm posting with a question/observation about pattern morphs... Since Radio is the only BRB I've seen in person until my first reptile show a few weeks ago (when I got Audrey) I thought he was the norm. I was totally surprised when Audrey's breeder pointed out her crescents to me, but a little research upon my return home explained why: Radio is a complete eclipse - not even a speck of color in his side spots (I'll try to get a few pics up later).
>>Is this a particularly special or rare morph, and how genetic is it? Is it something bred for, or a luck-of-the-draw type thing? I wish I had a little more info about Radio's background, but I got him as a birthday gift (he's about 9 months old now).
>>
>>(The first pic is Audrey, the second 2 are Radio - they're not great quality, but you can see his patterning)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>-----
>>1.1 BRB (Radio & Audrey)
>>1.0 African egg eater (Loki)
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=========================================================
Roberts Realm Of Reptile Research
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Thanks,

I opened my mouth and out flowed a melody black.

Thanks!
Here's a pic of Loki - I'll try to take a picture to scale soon. He's pretty tiny. I call him my little shoelace, because that's about how big he is. I actually tried him on button quail eggs a few times, but I think they were just way too big to handle right now. He scarfs down those finch eggs though, so I'm hoping maybe now that he's more comfortable with eating and growing a bit, he'll be moving on to bigger and better (and easier to procure!) eggs soon.

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1.1 BRB (Radio & Audrey)
1.0 African egg eater (Loki)

They are such cool snakes and not to many people (I know of) keep them.

Well you can be glad he is eating so well and will be on his way to bigger eggs.

My friend still uses finch eggs as well.

The first time he ate when he got him I had to feed him via a tube till he got the zebra finch's laying eggs regularly.

They are a snake I have wanted as long as I can remember, so for now I guess I will have to live vicariously through another.

That is a kewl shot of the egg in the throat as well!!!!

The first time I saw the little regurged shell I had to smile!

Thanks for sharing !

>>Thanks!
>>Here's a pic of Loki - I'll try to take a picture to scale soon. He's pretty tiny. I call him my little shoelace, because that's about how big he is. I actually tried him on button quail eggs a few times, but I think they were just way too big to handle right now. He scarfs down those finch eggs though, so I'm hoping maybe now that he's more comfortable with eating and growing a bit, he'll be moving on to bigger and better (and easier to procure!) eggs soon.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>-----
>>1.1 BRB (Radio & Audrey)
>>1.0 African egg eater (Loki)

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=========================================================
Roberts Realm Of Reptile Research
=========================================================
Thanks,

I opened my mouth and out flowed a melody black.

Welcome to the forum, and nice looking BRB's.

What are you going to study in Tennessee??

Are you working on any special projects??

Is there a herp friendly faculty??

Even though school is sometimes a lot of work, you get out of it what you put into it and it will help you tremendously with the rest of your life. I suggest working on a project you are passionate about as it will make the work easier and more rewarding.

Best wishes,
BHH
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Bryan Hummel
www.rainbowboas.com

Thanks for the welcome!
I'm actually an anthropology major and I'm looking at going into the field of culinary anthropology.
We have a great faculty, though, and our campus is over 10,000 acres so the school and bio department are VERY big on animals and herps, but primarily native species. It's funny you should ask; I didn't even get into snakes until my boyfriend (Brad) gave me Radio for my birthday in January. Since then I've bought two others, and he's bought some new guys (he's kept snakes off and on his whole life though) so together we have 1.1 BRB, 1.1 Egg eaters, 1.0 Ball, 1.1 hypo apricot Pueblan milks, and 1.0 Honduran milk. Oh, and the apricot milk dropped an unexpected clutch two days ago, so we're incubating some eggs, AND currently rehabilitating a female snapping turtle found with a broken jaw on campus. She's in bad shape, but we found a great herp-friendly vet who worked some magic on her jaw and we're slowly tubing her with cat food and seeing gradual improvement. She's very gravid, so hopefully we'll have some baby snappers in the near future to release back into the wild.
I guess you could call those projects... Also, Brad is working for the bio department this summer on campus, doing an inventory of all the reptiles in the area. Poor thing, he's getting paid to go out in the field for several hours a day and hunt for snakes and lizards. What an unpleasant job. I'm working for a restaurant, but I try to go out in the field with him when I can.

That was probably a longer reply than you bargained for. Thanks for the encouragement though! If you can't tell, I am pretty passionate about my babies, even though I'm pretty new to this whole herp thing.
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1.1 BRB (Radio & Audrey)
1.0 African egg eater (Loki)

Poor thing, he's getting paid to go out in the field for several hours a day and hunt for snakes and lizards. What an unpleasant job.

Yeah That sounds just terrible LOL!!!

Hope the Snapper gets better!!!

Here is one of mine when I got him, he was caught in salt marsh and was the size of a quarter in 2001.

Now he is getting HUGE!!!!

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=========================================================
Roberts Realm Of Reptile Research
=========================================================
Thanks,

I opened my mouth and out flowed a melody black.

Lovely snakes! Yeah, It's hard to stop with just one. For my birthday (June 27th) I've picked out a beautiful newly-hatched blood python with very red parents. She'll arrive a little later this month.

I like the name Loki for a snake too, by the way! In the case of my BRB, I thought he had a good enough bag of tricks (iridescence, color-changing sides, etc.) to be a good namesake for the trickster god!

A snake that can swallow eggs is another form of trickster!
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Renee

2.0 amel & anery corns (Foxfire & Daguerre)
1.0 BRB (Loki)
1.1 Cats (Nightshade & Cuzzy)