Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello from Finland. I have a breeding pair of normal black ratsnakes (Pantherophis obsoleta obsoleta) and a single white-sided P.o.o male. The black female is heterotsygous to albinism, and produced so far black babies with the black male.

I have heard very contradictious information about the white-sided, and found no facts about: some say it's a simple color mutation of normal Pantherophis obsoleta obsoleta, and some say it's a cross-breed subspecies mix of Pantherophis obsoleta lindheimeri (leucistic) and Pantherophis obsoleta obsoleta. Didn't find any topics about this, are there? Please help me, which information is true?

IF it is a non-hybrid color variant of plain "pure" black ratsnake, and I can breed my male with the black het for albinism-female (with no worries of creating more ssp-sppmix-hybrids, my biggest concern), is there any possibilities of getting white-sides in the F1-offspring? Is there / where can I find information about black ratsnake color genetics?

Best regards, and thank you very much. Kati, Finland

Intergrading things on purpose has ALWAYS been something I try to avoid at all costs. I also like to keep things exactly to the subspecific level. However, when something like the Black rat and Texas rat are involved, there is ALWAYS a chance that either/or genetic lineage is involved to at least SOME degree. They are just too closely related, and depending on who breeds what to what, and where an animal is actually caught, it can be impossible to discern.

They "key-out" meristic-wise(scalation, etc..) identical to each other, and many of either one?, depending where they are actually from can really be considered a clinal variant of sorts as well. So the bottom line here would be in my opinion, to just go ahead and breed them if you want. It's sort of like the "Honduran" milk thing.......they are what they are, and this cannot be reversed. Just try to do the best you can with keeping things as "pure" as you can, that's really all anyone can do here in this situation.

Some folks try to do there darndest to combine all sorts of weird genetics in their snake projects just because they CAN, but I have always thought this is not the right path for a large number of reasons.

Same exact thing can be said for leucistic rats, there is no doubt that many(probably not all) in the hobby have lindheimeri/obsoletus genetics involved also, it's just the way certain things are.

good luck with things!

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

the very first white sided black ratsnake...aka ''licorice rat'' was actually a female, wild caught by a kid who gave it to his teacher for extra credit points....it was then seen by George Miskimmons one night at a teacher /parent night thing....the teacher showed it to George and they figured out what it was and what to do with it.....it was then stolen from the classroom actually....and the teacher made a report that no charges would be filed if the snake made it's way back to the cage....miracle happened- and the snake was returned.....and it all started with that female black rat and other wild males from the same said area where she was found.....

so first was pure black ratsnake....
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........JY....
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Very interesting!,...thanks for posting that info!

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