Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I noted a tread a few down regarding hatchling size differences in Pituophis. Here is an image showing the two typically largest hatchlings, (black pines and Louisiana Pines) and the smallest, (Santa Cruz island gophers).

John,

That is a great display of the size difference between the three!! Very good idea for taking that photo!!

Later Jerky!!!!!!

Billy
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Genesis 1:1

Ginter,
...I am curiously ignorant about west coast pits, which I have "addressed" and I'm starting to do something about,lol...
so where are santa cruz gopphers native to and what is the habitat like? surprising how small they are at hatching.

daveb
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in the light, you will find the road...

these guys are found on santa Cruz Island and possibly Santa Rosa island which are part of the "Channel islands" off the coast of California west of LA.

The latin is P. c. pumilis which means "dwarf". The adult length for these guys is generally 30inches or less! really cool snakes and a must for the serious Pit collector!

thanks for asking!

...that ruthveni looks familiar, like maybe one I picked up from Suncoast a few years ago. Do you have a date on that pic?

-OT (slightly)..Picked up some nice vertebralis and jani at Daytona, and some nice West TX sonorans from KJ. I guess once you cross the mississippi and the longleaf pines there's a whole lot of territory to explore...yeeeeha!

cheers,
daveb

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in the light, you will find the road...

As a kid I poured over Conant's Field guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of the eastern US all winter long.... The pages featuring snakes of the Genus Pituophis were well worn. After moving west in the mid 80's a whole new world of Pituophis was revealed!

Some the east coast guys don't give the western pits much notice so I am happy to see you are "discovering" them for yourself! You have some great looking LAs, blacks, northerns......what else are you working with?

As for the Louisiana Pine in that image you may be correct!

I cleaned house in '06 primarily due to too many snakes and having children, I made the smart choice instead of it being a time problem. Everything went except the ruthveni. This year and last I started to rebuild as the family schedule became more consistant. I have been fortunate to get a lot of my old bloodlines (northern and black pines) back. New stuff I have been able to acquire this year include:

jani from Randy Whittington
west TX sonorans from KJ
some red and some albino bulls from Carl Gilmore
yearling cape gophers from Howie Sherman

All of these new animals have been great- looks wise and feeding like champs. It has been such a pleasant refresher to be able to hold a pit without getting clobbered as often happens with most of my ruthveni, lol.

I am still looking for eventually getting some het for nothing southerns and some more western/mexican pits (deppei?bulls?). Trading has worked well this year, and I hope I can do some more. I am glad to have the room so I can work a little bit with these and see which of these I will maintain over the long term.

Going to have to get some pics up soon, I guess.

daveb

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in the light, you will find the road...