Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello from Finland! Please help me: I have bought this individual years ago as L.t.hondurensis. (the woman who sold her had only a guess about the species...). Now I'm planning to breed him with my L.t.hondurensis female, if possible. I have never seen a hondurensis this big (152 cm) and deep red, and with this amount of black tipping (on every scale, except the belly). Is this really a hondurensis, or another subspecies of L.t? Thank you very much! Best regards, Jar

photo 1 (hope I get this right this time..)

photo 2

It looks very siimilar to some L.t. polyzona that
I have. I have seen Hondurans, I wouldn't call them L.t. hondurensis, that look similar. Has it darkened with age?
My polyzona were born as tri-colors and have darkened with age to black and burgandy, with a little of the orange showing through, at the snout. Most of the U.S. Hondurens have other
ssp. mixed in their bloodlines, including polyzona.
-Phil

Here are some neonate photos of my polyzona.

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Work is the curse of
the drinking class!

Yes, he has darkened significally through years. There are no white bands, the bands between black and red are yellow (nowadays tipped to allmost solid black). In the belly there are lots of aberrant patterns, for example some of the yellow bands switch to solid black. Are there yellow-banded polyzonas? Hope this is not a subspecies-mix. I won't use him in breeding if there is any possibility he is not a pure honduran. Thank you very much! -J

Do you know the origins of your "Hondurensis"?
If they came through the U.S., they may not be
pure Hondurensis.
-Phil
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Work is the curse of
the drinking class!

No, I don't, but I think most of the lampros in Finland are from breeders in Sweden and in Germany, it takes a LOT of money and paperwork to get them from U.S. But of course, I cannot be sure.

So, what do you think, this snake is not a honduran? Does he look more like a polyzona or a ssp-mix? (I think the red bands and the yellow bands are wider in my snake, in the polyzona pictures the white bands are more narrow?). How precise is the scale count, with the variation among individuals? Thank you again!

I have an adult Honduran that looks just like that, definitely all of mostly Honduran.
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Scott MacLeod
2.6 Snow Hondurans
2-4 Aberrant Hondurans
1.2 Aberrant Hypo Hondurans
0.1 Aberrant Hybino Honduran
1.3 Extreme Hypo VP
1.1 Tricolor Hypo VP
1.1 Albino Striped Sinaloan
2.7 Striped Sinaloan
2.4 Het Albino Sinaloan

Well,...going by it's visual phenotype alone, I'd have to go along with Phil. It has classic polyzona characteristics, but that's certainly not to say there is no possibility of some other geneflow also being involved in it's lineage.

Phil is also correct when he mentioned that many so-called pure "hondurensis" in the hobby also have other gene-flow from other subspecies in their genetic make-up. This is very easy to undestand since most people have no clue about what sets several Latin American ssp. apart from one another meristic-wise. Also, it is very difficult, to virtually impossible for even the most "well-seasoned" triangulum experts to make accurate identifications on many of these unless they are very good classic examples.

When locality is unknown, and you account for some individual variation, without seeing the entire clutch of siblings and the parents, it then is basically an educated guess as to what some of these snakes actually are in the hobby.

BTW,...are you even sure the other snake you mentioned is 100% hondurensis?. In any case though, Scott Ballard and I both agree with Phil in that it best represents polyzona meristic-wise.

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

Thank you all very much. Now I understand! No hobbyist can be 100% sure about the genetics of a cb pet-bred L.triangulum, due to generations of (ignorant or test-) crossings between subspecies / localities by pet breeders. The only way to be more sure would be getting a wild caught individual from the native area, with a very typical native phenotype. Yes?

I examined my other "wanna-be-hondurensis" -female (a few years younger than the polyzona-phenotype -male). Her markings are more hondurensis-type I have seen in Swedish breeders (in shape and width) but there are also lots of black tipping all over, and the yellow bands are slowly turning to black also. Therefore, she is not a typical hondo either, am I right? Oh, dear...

Anyway, I won't put them together. If I want to have a litter from the male, and looking like him, I will try to find a polyzona female. I know there's no certainty, actually no chance the babies are even near "pure" polyzona, but that way I won't do more harm mixing the phenotypes of two subspecies. This is the least I can do, with the knowledge that propably most of the pet snakes can have a ssp-mixed origin, in various amounts, and the pure genotype of a subspecies/locality cannot be proved. This is sad.

This has been very interesting and I have opened my eyes. I am sorry for the bad english . Thank you all. - J

I see you are understanding all this rather well, and that is great to know. The reasons you mentioned are exactly why.

This is not to say there aren't any pure hondurensis around, because there are, it's just that alot of Honduran's in the hobby also have diluted geneology of varying degrees.

For example, if your polyzona phenotype was bred to a "textbook perfect" hondurensis, then THOSE babies were also bred to a more hondurensis phenotype animal, after a few generations they become MUCH more Honduran like and impossible to distinguish as anything other than hondurensis, even though they are NOT really pure hondurensis anymore.

When you have phenotypic consistency in clutches, then you can be pretty certain as to exactly what things are.

This whole thing can be rather cloudy, and very confusing at times too. I know, because I have scratched my head MANY times regarding this issue..LOL!

Another HUGE problem is when books use horrible examples to describe a certain subspecies, and the photo looks NOTHING like what they are describing!..haha!

In any case, don't feel like you are the only one that's confused regarding this,.....there are MANY!

polyzona, stuarti and abnorma are the key players to this hondurensis confusion we see today.

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

Doug,

I am just curious to know how many snakes you have caught and examined in jungles and mountains of Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. There are about 110,000 square miles that ranges from sea level to over 9000 feet in elevation. For some reason I doubt every inch of land was covered when Williams conducted his study. Speaking of Williams, do you have any other sources you can site for this information. The meristic and mensural data produced by Williams on Hondurans is based on a 53 snake sample size. Was this a large enough sample size? What was the population size then?

It is quite possible that snakes do not read range maps and that there have been a number of natural integrades in the wild, but it always seems to be presented in a way that makes it appear that people are intentionally trying to create hybrids. In the end you do not have enough information to be saying most Hondurans are not "pure". A professor once told me that what I think means nothing if it can not be backed up by facts. Other than one source, where are the facts?
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Thanks!

Joe Exposito
Thoroughbred Exotics, LLC
www.thoroughbredexotics.com

boy joe, your good
well doug???
,,,,,,,,,thomas davis
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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

Thomas,.......

Seems to me that not long ago, you were trying to bash my milksnakes because you thought you knew something that I didn't about them, and they were all mixed lineage. NOW you take the opportunity to pop in out of nowhere to try to add a little fuel to things and imply the exact opposite...LOL!

How would YOU know anything about purity??, you will throw any two snakes together from a pillowcase just to see what comes out of the egg!..LOL!..you do it all the time and are seemingly proud of it too.

I'll say it once again,.....if you think you can tell me anything about any kind of snake at all, then I'm all ears, until then, quit following me around looking for an opportunity to post your little childish comments.

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

Thomas,.......

>>>Seems to me that not long ago, you were trying to bash my milksnakes because you thought you knew something that I didn't about them, and they were all mixed lineage. NOW you take the opportunity to pop in out of nowhere to try to add a little fuel to things and imply the exact opposite...LOL!

>doug,.......
when did i ever bash anything of yours? please name/cite one time i put down ANY snake yours or otherwise. i love ALL snakes. i HATE when purist say you are creating mutts from ssp. that occur in the same general area all the while creating their own from animals they like the look of or what a textbook tells them they are suppossed to look like.

>>>How would YOU know anything about purity??, you will throw any two snakes together from a pillowcase just to see what comes out of the egg!..LOL!..you do it all the time and are seemingly proud of it too.

>theres the ole doug come'on c o m e ' o n... what do YOU know about purity doug??? to stay on topic somewhat like joe said sample size of 53 animals? you tell me whats pure doug and how you know??? also do you really think its that easy to crossbreed snakes? and yeah call me silly but i am VERY proud of every snake ive produced, gee i wish i'd have known it was as easy as throwing 2 snakes together in a pillowcase sure would have saved alot of time and energy.

>>>I'll say it once again,.....if you think you can tell me anything about any kind of snake at all, then I'm all ears, until then, quit following me around looking for an opportunity to post your little childish comments.

> say it a thousand times if you feel the need. in the case of this post what is the point? snake in question looks like what I call a honduran you cant say it isnt or if you can i can say it is, see thats called FREE SPEECH and opinion im entitled just as you are.
the splitters have classified the ssp. poly,stuart,honduren,etc.from a sample size of a whopping 53 animals and even then across that big of a range your going to have differant looks & sizes that doesnt make them that differant to say MUTTS are being created and all hobby hondurans are mutts except for a few that only you can classify by one pic.
and gee im sorry if you feel im following you around and making childish comments, get over it.
,,,,,,,,,thomas davis
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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

>> "This is not to say there aren't any pure hondurensis around, because there are, it's just that alot of Honduran's in the hobby also have diluted geneology of varying degrees."

Joe, if you look at my post real well, it is plain to see that I mentioned there are also pure examples too. And on the other hand, some that are not so pure.

I personally have alot of these very same animals, so why would you think I'm condemning them?.....not the case here at all, Joe.

All snakes with rings and nose bands are NOT considered hondurensis. That is the only point I was making. So there's no real need to get up tight about the post I made.

So then are you telling me that all the milks originating from Latin America that we see in the hobby now ARE true "hondurensis"?. ........See how this works?

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

Hi Doug,

It was good to see you in Daytona. You may be right or you may be wrong, so what I am asking for is factual information based on more than one book or source. You said yourself that many books don't have good examples to show the differences in these snakes. There was some discussion last year about grouping several of the Central American milk snakes in to one group because they are so similar. You also stated that many experts have a hard time telling them apart. All I meant by my post was that if you are going to say it then be able to back it up with evidence and thus far I have not seen enough evidence. I'm not up tight, but I am always looking for the best information, so if you have some other sources, by all means share them. We have spoken about this before and this was not meant to be a personal attack, but rather a good discussion about the sources of your information.
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Thanks!

Joe Exposito
Thoroughbred Exotics, LLC
www.thoroughbredexotics.com

Nice seeing you again at Daytona too, Joe.

Well, there is only "one" book source so far(Systematics and Natural History of the American Milksnake) that all the other books get their information from. It was comprised of a total of 560 animals from Latin America(excluding annulata) that were studied, 53 were of hondurensis in different parts of their range.

The point you yourself mentioned about several of them looking very similar is exactly the point I was trying to get across. Williams' data was very precise explaining the differences, including large sections pertaining to intergrade specimens as well, and WHY he thought they were intergrades, by them having two or more characteristics from other subspecies in one sample specimen.

Many photo's where accurate, but some were not at all, with some animals having way different ring counts than they were supposed to be for that particular given subspecies. Bill Lamar provided a good number of these photo's, and some were not good examples at all of the snakes that were being discribed and represented by Williams text, but the TEXT data itself was very accurately written. This could have been due to getting the book into publication faster and not wanting to insult Lamar in the process too, I don't know.

My friend Scott Ballard even had a photo of an absolutely "text-book" example of stuarti in Markel's book that was incorrectly labeled as "micropholis", so this certainly only adds tons of confusion to this already confusing issue we all see regarding this.

Fact is, when any of these classic examples are intergraded, it makes for a whole lot of head scratching to most of us(me definitely included).

One thing I can safely say though, is that of all of Latin America, and ALL the snakes that have ever came from there into the hobby, certainly these cannot ALL be hondurensis, this just wouldn't seem logical. There are lots of snakes out there that have visual characteristics of different subspecies in them, and this should not come as any big surprise at all, because as you just said(and I agree) there are several that are very similar. So going from just that one statement alone, one can logically conclude that there is very likely other involvement in some of these in the hobby.....NOT ALL, but a good number, that is all I'm saying here.

If I see a snake with 33 RBR(red body rings), some black bands touching, very thin inner white/yellow bands, lots of distict red scale tipping, and a broad strait across nose band, I would be looking at an "abnorma", and not a hondurensis. That's about all I can say about that. Sure they can vary, and do, but only to a certain point realistically.

Anyone can feel free to call some of them whatever they choose to(and often do), but there are some differences within subspecies. I'm certainly not saying that I can accurately identify all of them out there, because I cannot, but I CAN distinguish most of the good examples, and as I said before, when two or more subspecies are involved, it becomes virtually impossible to discern.

Another good example for the sake of argument would be....is a Cosala Sinaloan the same as a nelsoni?....a definite NO is the answer to that. I think most would certainly agree. I have posted detailed explanations about the identifying characteristics of both those before two, and the difference between the two classic forms is like comparing night to day.

Anyway, I'm not trying to tell anyone that what "they" have is one thing or the other, I'm just trying to point out that there are differences, and that sometimes it can get real cloudy.

anyway, this topic comes up from time to time, and I don't always mention anything about it, but I(and Phil) were just trying to help the poster out in identifying the snake, that's all.

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

Man Doug,
I have been led to believe this whole time that all my hondurans where pure hondurensis.Now I find out that maybe they have other gene flow in them and could actually be part stuarti or abnorma or even polyzona????? that does it, I am selling them all really cheap and getting into pure morphs of brooksi,LOL.......

Lets just look at the three morphs that started it all.

The anery animal imported by Dave Doughrty way back when had alot of stuarti influence in it and the snake had NO locale data at all and was w/c.

The first albinos brought in the country by Luise Porras and BHB from two sources turned out to be from the same breeders and keyed out more polyzona than they did hondurensis and they where also w/c animals collected who knows where and they had NO locale data.

The first hypo was produced by a couple tangerine dreams.The dreams where produced by a male snake purchased in a pet store for $15.00 labled a coral snake by Bill Love.Bill said he knew it wasn't a coral and he purchased it just for fun.He said it looked liked a honduran and or abnorma and he then went and purchased a couple w/c females (again with NO locale data) out of a huge barrell that had the same type of "look".

So, I just can't figure out why you would think that all the hondos in the hobby are anything but "hondurensis"?????
They did all get exported from hunduras so they must be honduran milks?

Oh well, maybe I will just keep back a few for fun but I guess they are just the south of the border corn now.LOL.....I still love them.

pic below is of a double het snow I produced in (02) and you can see how she looks more like a stuarti than anything but what do I know.

L8r

Shannon,...

Yeah,....I was going to bring up all those individual points too!, and that stuff is definitely right on the button!

As you said Shannon,.....now your entire collection must GO!..LOL!

I don't see any reason anyone should have to loose sleep over this, it's just the way it is.

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

Just stop believing in species. Damn Mayr!

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“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859

Natural Selection Reptiles

Though I may be prematurely “rocking the boat”, here, I’ll chime in.

First, I'll have to agree with Doug, Shannon, and others. What we've got for Hondurans in the hobby is a mix of snakes from different geographic areas. Latin American milks (all triangulum, for that matter) have broad zones of intergradation, and some of these zones may be broader than the ranges of the morphologically "pure" forms.

Second, I wouldn't be surprised to see hondurensis, abnorma, stuarti, and maybe even oligozona all sunk into polyzona in the near future. This is in light of new and up-coming research into the relationships of these "subspecies", and the evidence to suggest that the minor differences we see are due to clinal variation, not insipient speciation (population divergence). If future genetic and morphological data support this hypothesis (as it seems it will), all of our "Hondurans" will be polyzona (as they were until Williams’ publication in 1978), and they'll all be "pure". Perhaps we should begin referring to our captive "Hondurans" as "Meso-American Milks"?...

I figure this is an appropriate time to discuss Williams’ work, too. While it’s undeniably the best thing we’ve got, and is comprised of data from more Lampropeltis triangulum specimens than have ever been examined, it’s not perfect. Our understanding of inter- and intra-specific relationships has come a long way since the late 1970’s. It should also be noted that his splitting of many populations into multiple subspecies has been highly criticized in academic literature (Harry Greene’s critical review is but one example). Williams’ work is great, and a must-have for the Lampro-nut, but isn’t the be-all and end-all.

-Cole

Thanks for the post Cole!

I am not saying they are wrong either, but what I am saying is what you just mentioned. The Williams work is not the end all do all. We need more information and I will be very curious to see the results of the research you spoke of.
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Thanks!

Joe Exposito
Thoroughbred Exotics, LLC
www.thoroughbredexotics.com

Just ease off with the nomenclature here man... we don't doubt you know what you're talking about. Ever think 'true' multistriata could have been able to exist in a 'true to form' subterranean form during the Wisconian? What about Canada eh? You guys need to find out if anyone is willing to light that fire up there... might be an interesting find...

Chris

>>The first hypo was produced by a couple tangerine dreams.The dreams where produced by a male snake purchased in a pet store for $15.00 labled a coral snake by Bill Love.Bill said he knew it wasn't a coral and he purchased it just for fun.He said it looked liked a honduran and or abnorma and he then went and purchased a couple w/c females (again with NO locale data) out of a huge barrell that had the same type of "look".

I COULDN'T FIND ANY MENTION IN MY NOTES OF BILL LOVE THINKING THE ORIGINAL "TANGERINE DREAM" WAS ANYTHING BUT A HONDURAN. SO I WROTE HIM AND ASKED. HE AND KATHY ARE ON A "BUSINESS VACATION" IN ARIZONA RIGHT NOW BUT HE TOOK TIME TO SEND THIS REPLY:

"The story is "drifting" a little, kinda like that old game of telephone, eh?

"Kathy and I bought the original 'Tangerine Dream' L. t. hondurensis for $25 from Aurora Castellanos (her Honduran import business was called Viva Animales, in Miami) around 1986. It was under deep shavings in a small aquarium in her narrow venomous herp room in her shop (which I sked to see because I was interested in eyelash vipers). She was convinced it was a coral snake. She said they came in as extra 'junk' that she really didn't want, and was probably tickled to 'ream' me for that much to be rid of it. I knew instantly that it was a Honduran milk; that was the only thing I ever thought it was. After we hooked it out of the cage (because it was 'venomous') and bagged it, we moved past her hot room to look at other herps she imported from family members in Honduras. That's when my companion -- renowned herp artist Marty Capron of Kansas -- asked if the 'coral' I bought was what he suspected it really was, and I replied 'yes'. Marty immediately said "I wonder if there are any more of them hiding under the shavings in th cage". I was so excited to get the one I saw tucked behind the water bowl that I never checked for others in the cage. Marty uncovered one more milk - a tricolor phase baby L.t. hondurensis, which he bought for $25 also. Aurora definitely didn't recognize juvenile milks for what they really were, but since she paid for corals, she made the proper mark-up on them, and I didn't feel bad that I ripped her off.

"We eventually bred it to other hondurensis that we got from Viva Animales and other importers who were getting hondurensis in in quantity at the time. We chose the most attractive females we could find. Aurora imported only from Honduras, but I suppose it's possible even her imports (or those of numerous others) could have come from broad areas that included other races of L. triangulum."

Thanks for the accurate information!
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Thanks!

Joe Exposito
Thoroughbred Exotics, LLC
www.thoroughbredexotics.com

Yeah, thanks Terry .I was off by like $10.00 on what he paid for the pet store snake labled "coral".That was a close one...
I guess I just didn't remember our conversation that well in Anaheim some four or five years ago.
I almost had all the facts wrong and I am glad you where able to clear that up.
I guess now we can assume they are pure! LOL.....

L8r

so the hondurans that produced the hypos were from a barrel of imports imported mainly from honduras but other "races" could have been mixed in, then chosen by looks as the best looking by commercial breeders. hmmmm ok thanks for posting that.
now do any splitters wanna talk about purity in morph at least hypo CA milksnakes AKA hondos?
,,,,,,thomas davis
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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

>> Her markings are more hondurensis-type I have seen in Swedish breeders (in shape and width) but there are also lots of black tipping all over, and the yellow bands are slowly turning to black also. Therefore, she is not a typical hondo either, am I right? Oh, dear.....

It's quite common--perhaps typical--for tricolor hondurans to darken with age until the narrow light-colored ring in the center of each triad has turned black (black tipping increases to the point where the ring is entirely filled in). The result is a snake that shows alternating wide (because they're comprised of two narrow black rings plus a formerly narrow light-colored.ring) black rings and red rings. Because of that new appearance, they're usually referred to as "bicolors".

and one more, photo3