Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After reading the Reptile Magazine article on captive Russian )Amur) Ratsnakes, I'm very interested in obtaining one. Does anyone out there have any experience w/ this species (including breeder info)? Where can I "pick" one up? Thanks 4 your help.

The author of that cool article is a regular poster on this site! Way to go Tim!! Jeff

... so where can I find one???

My pair came from Tim Spuckler! Jeff

His web site is Third Eye Herps or something like that. You should be able to google it.

Mine came from Tim as well.

Thanks guys... looks like i'll be in touch w/ Tim.

I haven't seen any advertised in the last three years, so they seem to be hard to find (though "back in the day" they were commonly seen at shows).

I hope to produce Russians again this year, the eggs have a shorter hatch time than I expected (45 days at 82 degrees). Last year's babies hatched out on June 14.

Tim

Third Eye

n/p

Tim,That is wonderful pic!Can't wait till mine look like that! Jeff

There's something about those that I really like as well. Nice pic. I'm torn, I kinda want to move more toward Pits, but I'm still drawn to the rats. My girlfriend say's that I have a problem.
-----
Matt Kauffman

>>There's something about those that I really like as well. Nice pic. I'm torn, I kinda want to move more toward Pits, but I'm still drawn to the rats. My girlfriend say's that I have a problem.
>>-----
>>Matt Kauffman

No problem, Matt. Pits are a type of ratsnake. They are all closely related in the Lampropeltini. In a recent paper Burbrink et al. tried to place all Pantherophis and Pituophis in the same genus. So, I would just tell your girlfriend that they are all ratsnakes, basically. However, I don't keep pits, mainly because they're so big. Russians are big too, but they are really sweethearts...haha!

Gotta love the ratsnakes, especially the smaller ones. You can keep more species that way...

Cheers...Terry

-----
Conserving reptiles by helping to protect habitat...
www.ratsnakehaven.com
www.scenicsantaritas.org

Tell me this guy doesn't look like a ratsnake...

Heheheh!!
-----
Conserving reptiles by helping to protect habitat...
www.ratsnakehaven.com
www.scenicsantaritas.org

Nooooooooo....never gonna go there Terry!
-----
Todd Hughes

Well, ratsnakes do bear a superficial resemblance to P. d. d. in that that species has a more gracile head shape but I wouldn't lump all rats into Pituophis just for that ;-P

>>Well, ratsnakes do bear a superficial resemblance to P. d. d. in that that species has a more gracile head shape but I wouldn't lump all rats into Pituophis just for that ;-P

I'm not saying we should do any lumping, Brad. I'm just saying that pits are a type of ratsnake, in the general sense. A long time ago, the ancestral ratsnake came over to N. A. from Asia via the Bering Straits Land Bridge. That ratsnake, or group of ratsnakes, gave rise to the Lampropeltini, the North American ratsnake radiation. Look at it this way...What group of snakes do you think pits are most closely related to?

PS: Just trying to do a little comparative taxonomy with you...

Terry

-----
Conserving reptiles by helping to protect habitat...
www.ratsnakehaven.com
www.scenicsantaritas.org

Terry, sorry for the "lumper" insult

Is it a well accepted that ancestral ratsnakes migrated here over the land bridge and gave rise to Lampropeltini? If so, very interesting indeed. Can you point me to some material a lay person could digest?

As for what pits most closely resemble phenotypically...hmmm???...sort of a rat/king hybrid on steroids, really ain't nothin' quite like it to me.

Aside from the kidding around...I love rats pretty much as much as pits...throw in a few tropical milks and you've got it going on

>>Terry, sorry for the "lumper" insult
>>

No problem, Brad. Responding gives me something to do in my otherwise boring routine...LOL!

>>Is it a well accepted that ancestral ratsnakes migrated here over the land bridge and gave rise to Lampropeltini? If so, very interesting indeed. Can you point me to some material a lay person could digest?
>>

Yes. Several nice papers discuss it, and many others build on that knowledge, including the works done by Burbrink et al. in recent years. If you want to try to wade through some of it, send me an email.

BTW, the Lampropeltini include all the N. A. ratsnakes, Pituophis, Lampropeltis, Cemophora, Rhinocheilus, Arizona, Senticolis, Bogerotophis, etc.

>>As for what pits most closely resemble phenotypically...hmmm???...sort of a rat/king hybrid on steroids, really ain't nothin' quite like it to me.
>>

Haha! I think they are just a ratsnake that has adapted to the western-most part of the country, because the other ratsnakes aren't adatped to the semi-arid habitats. They have a lot in common. Also the kingsnakes diverged from the ratsnakes early on in the ratsnake radiation, many millions of years ago, and the pits only recently, a few million years ago (wink!)

>>Aside from the kidding around...I love rats pretty much as much as pits...throw in a few tropical milks and you've got it going on

I'm with you. I'm mainly a ratsnake/kingsnake guy. There's enough variation there to keep one interested for a lifetime...

TC

-----
Conserving reptiles by helping to protect habitat...
www.ratsnakehaven.com
www.scenicsantaritas.org

So no one knows where I may be able to find this snake???

>>So no one knows where I may be able to find this snake???

tspuckler has posted on this strand...

-----
Conserving reptiles by helping to protect habitat...
www.ratsnakehaven.com
www.scenicsantaritas.org

yup... already spoke w/ Tim. He will have available mid-summer. Anyone else?