Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've asked this before, but with all this locality purity "discussion", I'd like to ask again....

What is a locality? How big is it?

- Is Highway 90 a locality?
- Pandale Paved (1024) is less than 2 miles from Juno road for much of its length, yet those are different localities. Are crosses between those are mutts? Meanwhile animals from many miles apart on the River Road are regarded as locality animals.
- The Davis Mountains gets used as a locality in spite of the fact that we are talking about a huge area.
- The "locality" lines of Hueco animals come from animals found many miles apart.

I think before we start a substantive discussion of what is or isn't a "pure" locality animal, we should have to define the boundaries of a locality.

Since most of the "localities" are practically linear transects through 3 dimensional habitats, it doesn't really make much sense to me anyway, but I am curious (again) what definition people use.

To me, there ought to be some "theoretical probability" that locality animals could have mated with each other in the wild. If they are from 3 miles apart, I put that probability at zero.

Is an adult animal collected on a cut in 1977 the same locality as a young animal collected on the same cut in 2008? It is the same gene pool, but the probability of them having mated is zero.

We don't seem to have any standards yet we worry about purity of lineages?
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

>>
>>- Is Highway 90 a locality?

No.

>>To me, there ought to be some "theoretical probability" that locality animals could have mated with each other in the wild. If they are from 3 miles apart, I put that probability at zero.
>>
>>Is an adult animal collected on a cut in 1977 the same locality as a young animal collected on the same cut in 2008? It is the same gene pool, but the probability of them having mated is zero.
>>
I think almost everyone would agree that it is a matter of animals being collected from the same "gene pool"-regardless of any temporal issues. In your example above, I'd answer a resounding and emphatic YES, as to the two animals collected from the same cut a decade apart being from the same locality.

On the other hand, two animals collected from isolated road cuts only a couple miles apart might be regarded as being from seperate gene pools if the intervening habitat is hostile to alterna.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase and Striped Desert California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles

Talk to 10 people, get 10 answers. The only real way to know gene pool is to do genetic testing. Not many of us are equipped to do that. So, what are our options??? My thoughts are to go by my own personal observations.

Locality to me is based on what the animals look like along with positive collection data. Without scientific proof, most people will rely on the "word" of the collector/breeder. Some people have enough actual experience to make pretty good educated guesses of the local of an animal by just looking at it. Not positive proof by any means but, in my mind better than just "word".

I remember when alterna and blairi were different species. In east Langtry, Comstock, Juno, and on 277 you could find each type on a nite. Even if they were found on the same little stretch of road we did not think they were "local" to each other. Now we know different and we would not hesitate to breed an "alterna" with a "blairi" that were found on the same cut. Obviously, now we would consider that as "locality" as it gets. There have not been many alterna phase animals found west of Langtry. They are there and the gene is in blairs phase to produce alterna. They are locality specific but the alterna gene is not dominate in snakes from west langtry. A good question is - Are snake from east Langtry "locality" with west Langtry???? My answer is YES. Now if one wishes to make snakes that look more specifically like east or west, then one should breed to more specific local, ie., east, west, cut, town, whatever.

Those with experience can tell a Langtry, Comstock, Pumpville, Pandale, Juno, 227, or Pecos river snake from a Davis, Hueco, Alpine, Blackgap, River Road, or Christmas. Those breeders,with any integrity, would not intentionally cross breed and then sell as pure. I think, fortunately, there are people with experience that can give educated opinions and question some of the things going on. Keeps people honest.

It has been said by many, myself included, that we need to police ourselves. Weed out the breeders without integrity. Learn to trust our instincts. All we need do is remind ourselves what can happen. Look at the corn snakes, hognose snakes, bearded dragons, and leopard geckos. Those breeders are so into making a buck, they will do anything to get a new morph and hopefully be the first person with that morph to make the most bucks. I am not down on them for doing that, I am merely saying that it is happening with alterna, will continue to happen, and we should do what we can to preserve our integrity and the integrity of the "local".

ECTimaeus

To me a locality breeding would be from a pair of animals that are from founding animals that come from the same local gene pool. In some places that local genetic exchange might cover a large area where habitat is more continuous and barriers such as rivers are not impeding that gene flow. In others that habitat is more broken or there might be a barrier that you need to identify as a cut off.

It really comes down to a judgment call, and as such we all have our opinions / standards / limits. So it is up us to be up front with our animals and their background. Honestly if somebody decides to pass on something I produced I hold them no grudge, truth is that despite locality data most of these animals are not worth any more in a deli cup than a generic/mutt.

And getting back to that fact, the only animals that have locality data of any value at all are the wild caught animals. Once we pair them in captivity even if they were caught 3 feet apart on the same night, those F1 and later animals do not have locality data with any real or scientific merit. You can not turn them into a wildlife collection as "x.x miles north of some road" if they are the product of captive breeding.... The only exception would be a wild bred female that was collected gravid.

And then going deeper into this, we, as people with an eye for what we like tend to select for "locality" animals that do not really look like what you could go find. We select for better colors or interesting patterns. These "improvements" over time do not look anything like the animals found. Seems as a rule animals from western stock are bred to be busy or speckled and eastern stock are bred to be bright and clean.

So coming back around, if it was found in a deli cup the locality data only matters to the person that keeps that animal or down the road people that might obtain its offspring later. that is why we keep records, polluting the locality is nonsense as we are not in any way doing this to re-stock the wild, it is a hobby with some very dedicated people that have an interest in keeping up with that locality data even though they tend to line breed away from the looks those localities provide.
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___________________________
Herp Conservation Unlimited

If people really learn from their mistakes, I should be like the smartest guy in the world

To me a locality breeding would be from a pair of animals that are from founding animals that come from the same local gene pool.

So by that logic, are pandale paved and south Juno the same locality?
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

So by that logic, are pandale paved and south Juno the same locality?

As a "keeper" I would choose to split that up, but to the animals and natural gene flow they might very well be the same. Same argument can be had for 277 and Juno, but what about Juno North and South of Bakers Crossing, each side of the devils river? I know any alterna can swim across a river and the Devils River is a small one at that, but it would impede that natural gene flow.
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___________________________
Herp Conservation Unlimited

If people really learn from their mistakes, I should be like the smartest guy in the world

The best way to handle a situation being described is to tell the prospected buyer where the parents are from and let them decide for themselves. For example, if one snake is found on Juno a quarter mile in from 90 and another is found on Pandale a quarter mile from 90 it's a judgement call. You can call them Juno's, Pandale paved or possible Comstock's. The history of the snakes needs to be relayed to the person interested in the babies.

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Steve W.

Share the information you do have on the animal, do not assume any details to fill in any gaps, and let the buyer decide in the end. With some of these long term lines that some people have the only information you might have is that Billy Bob and John Doe sold the parents to me as 277's for my founding stock.... not that they are from such and so cut or mile marker or anything, just a general locality.
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___________________________
Herp Conservation Unlimited

If people really learn from their mistakes, I should be like the smartest guy in the world

That is where reputation will always come into play.
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Steve W.

That was the point i was trying to make, disclose, disclose, disclose.
I dont think that it really matters other than if that persone was looking for an exact pure locality animal from a specific location they should get what they paid for, right?

The idea is the genetics we have in captive stock will become completelty diluted over time with know new wild caught genetics being brought in. With the new laws we know this cant legally hapen so we should air on caution with our breeeding and disclosure.

without new WC blood coming in and holding some ground on our captive stock everything we have will be pushed into a non-local look with our line breeding as it is anyay. We will pair them up to our taste for color or pattern and end up with what I guess you would call a "line bred locality mutt". People want a red on black blairs from the Christmas mountians, and a almost patternless speckled black gap, those ultra light pin banded 277s, etc and so on... yet these deli cup animals that are our "standard" are not really what you find in those areas.
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___________________________
Herp Conservation Unlimited

If people really learn from their mistakes, I should be like the smartest guy in the world

So true Lance. However, wild caught animals like the examples you mention do exist, or have existed.

Pin banded very light 277.

Black and orange from Christmas.

Patternless from the Gap.

It's all been found, some more than once or twice.

So "looks" we are breeding for, do exist in the wild from that locality. Nevertheless, I totally get what you are saying and I do agree.
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Brad Alexander

FullSpectrumHerps.com

Well said.
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Steve W.

Thanks Lance that was a good post, you Quantified your position.

That's what I said in another post on here, I think I called them Langtry look A likes. There is a solution but people would have to stop being in denial and offer true locality animals, animals from someone that has had a black cloud over them would have to start selling these snakes as just 277 locality or river Sanderson locality. The problem with this is Sanderson covers 20 square miles of hunting, river road is 18 miles of hunting, etc, etc. Im just saying if you have good viable stock from 5 miles east of Sanderson or the big hill on the river, keep it as such if you want, keep very good data so we can now try to keep good captive stock. The ability to add new blood is all but illegal so it now becomes important. If you just want to breed a specific area without true locality animals im allright with that too, but full disclose this fact.

I have a question for you and Steve. My email is rth.cpars@att.net. Thanks, Bob