Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Founding bloodlines are there of
lineaticollis? I've heard they all came from 2.3 founding imported in the late 70's early 80's?
Ruthveni? Plainsville parish and Terry's line are there any other and how often has new blood been introduced?
Lodingi? I've heard people have brought new blood in from Mississippi, but I can only recall a hand full of sightings over the last 5-10 years of wild animals.
I'm just throwing this out for discussion
Nate

great question.
-I believe that Terry Vandeventer collected around eleven founder animals. It seems that alot of people think that his animals are "common", but they are not. I have recently acquired first time offspring from wild caught animals from Terry.
-There is a picture of a pair of animals on the snakes of Louisiana page from Bienville Parish I believe collected by Mike Monlezun. This bloodline is part of Tom Agosta's diverse collection.
-Jim Kane's bloodline from the 90's was Terry's bloodline bred into a Memphis lineage animal. The zoo animal was originally traded to Mike Collalto of Buffalo NY (BTW, the first guy to produce piebald black pines) who then sold/traded it to Jim.
-This year I met a gentleman that has a pair of Vernon Parish ruthveni, but does not breed commercially.
-In the early 90's, a number of herpers participated in the first studbook for Louisiana pines. I think that was short lived but I imagine some of those bloodlines may still be out in the public.
- I am pretty sure that others have collected and bred ruthveni.

So, the captive bloodline CAN be fairly diverse, but all caution should apply when out looking.

I don't know how anyone can acquire "new" bloodlines of black pines from Mississippi or Alabama as they are (supposedly) pretty strict about protecting the black pines. I would love to hear more. I have only heard of one bloodline that can be traced back to founder stock (TV/Young), don't know where the rest have come from.

hope this helps some, hope it helps stir some polite discussion.

daveb

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

Well I guess most people here care more about the Pit morphs than naturally occuring snakes. It's kinda a bummer Pituophis are going the way of Corns/balls/inbred mutts. Thats one of the reasons I'm moving towards Drymarchon but I think its only a matter of time till a morph shows up then gets crossed to all the others. I do think there will always be the people that want pure locality animals its just sad that they are getting harder and harder to find.
Sorry for the rant.
Nate

You just found one here.
-----
Matt Kauffman