I felt it was time to share this girl with everyone in preparation for next season. I will give a little of the account of how I came to own her. I am sure there will be some skeptics and others who believe me. I can only say that many of you know how doggedly I have researched Ruthveni in the past and will not add any animals to my stock that have the slightest hint of not being pure Ruthveni. I haven’t posted on here regularly in quiet a few years. I used to be here a lot so hopefully there are a few around that remember me. Hope you enjoy and if you have reasonable questions, I’ll be glad to respond.
At any rate, she was acquired legally from Rapides Parrish. My luck is that while living in Georgia, I had a co-worker who was originally from Oklahoma. After two years of working together, we were discussing where he was going on vacation. He said it was fishing in Texas but that he was going to meet up with his cousins and uncle in Alexandria, LA for a few days. Needless to say I jumped at the opportunity. I printed several pics of pure Ruthveni and he took them with him for his family to please advise if they ever saw any of these snakes. When he came back he advised they occasionally saw them on their land but not often. They said they saw maybe one ever 4-5 years or so. Thankfully they are not scarred of snakes and said they would catch it for me if I wanted, but they would need help on how to ship it to me. At any rate, that was in 2003. I stay in touch with them a few times a year concerning these and finally last September they contacted me to say they had one for me. She was taken off a dirt road and she was leaving a cultivated field. I will not provide anymore locality information than that, hopefully that will suffice, if not, sorry. I am not trying to be a jerk, but I just can’t loose that contact and I do not want to have people hounding them to let them collect their lands.
I shipped a prepared box to them with a return label. This is how they were shipped to me. I have had the worst luck with these guys and have killed (inadvertently) more than most people have ever seen in a lifetime, ask KJ. I still can’t believe he speaks to me. Due to this, I elected to keep this quiet until I could be sure it was healthy and eating. After feeling confident she was, I shipped her along with my other pair to John Ginter before anything could go wrong. Ginter can vouch that the other pair was not breedable; the female was not large enough nor was the male, so there is no chance I am trying to pull a fast one here by substituting a hatchling from them as a WC. Simply, I did not and still do not have a breeding sized Ruthveni male or female.
Earlier in the year I purchased 3.3 Ruthveni from Tommy Agosta and all of those can be accounted for. 1.0 I kept and it is the male sent to Ginter, 0.1 went to KJ, 1.1 to Dave Boyle and 1.1 to Andy Via. Sorry for so much info, but Ginter and I both felt we needed to provide as much info as possible to hopefully satisfy and peoples questions, concerns and possible doubts.
I am not a photographer and have no photographic skills but the pics below are of her and one of her along side the male I kept from Tommy. She looks a good bit different than most Bienville animals we see but not a lot like the Rapides I used to have. This is not entirely surprising since the old Rapides line only represented one pair of animals. She is extremely dark and does have the more “WC” look several of us have discussed and noticed. She has a few minor scars and a slightly “white” nose, but other than that, nothing major. The first pic is one of her and the WC/Zoo line male. She is the larger and darker of the two. That male is the sibling and half sibling to the others mentioned in this post.
I look forward to John breeding her to the male I have and hope to one day obtain a Rapides male for her to save the locality, but for now she will be bred to a male that the result of a WC Bienville Male bred to a female that was from a Memphis Zoo male x Red WC Female. That should be really good fresh genetics. Hope you enjoy the pics and wish us luck that she produces viable eggs next season.
