Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Has anyone done this? Would it be pointless?

I tried doing some research and haven't found anything. I figured their colors were similar enough to do something with since I somehow acquired the pair.

If it's a waste, I'll just have some nice pets. :]

I personally would not do it. I would try and trade one of them for a correct mate. For example maybe send me the texas rat and I will find you a true white-side black rat. I am a texas rat junky so you will have to forgive me. And to be hinest I think you will have a much easier time moving legit offspring than you will hybrids or in this case integrades. Just my two cents.

Allen Sheehan

Before I did anything, if I were concerned with hard to dispose of babies, I'd make sure my whitesided "Ratsnake" was in fact a real Black Ratsnake (P./E. obsoleta obsoleta). Most whitesided black ratsnakes I see are hybrids/intergrades of various species. No telling what might present itself if you have one of these. I've never kept leucistic Texas Rats; don't know how that gene works.

"Most whitesided black ratsnakes I see are hybrids/intergrades of various species. No telling what might present itself if you have one of these"

Yeah, and for that matter, the same goes for the leucistic "Texas" Rat too. No telling if there isn't already leucistic Black Rat geneflow in there either, as there is really no meristical scalation difference between the two subspecies anyway. The only way to tell them apart is by their normal color/pattern phenotype anyway. And when that is not being displayed due to the leucistic gene being involved, who really knows what they really are over the years they have both been produced and crossed to whatever extent. Because I guarantee that many have over the years.

But in any case, crossing these two on PURPOSE would not be a good idea at all in my opinion. There are already more muddied-up types of snakes in the hobby than you could shake a stick at in 5 lifetimes, so no good reason to contribute more of these..

Also to the OP, the genetic combination you are contemplating wouldn't be seen at all, but the double het offspring when paired would create both types in the clutch. But these would be DEFINITE man-made crosses then as other's have said, and moving them would not be very appealing to most. And the other's that wouldn't mind don't care or know any better anyway to be quite honest. I would do as Allen suggested and do your very best to keep them as genuinely pure as possible, and not go crossing stuff on purpose to further muddy-up genepools more than they already are.........lord knows it is quite extensive already.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -Serpentine Specialties

I am assuming you have a leucistic TEXAS rat and a white-sided BLACK rat. Leucism and white-sided are both recessive traits. I am not sure how they work to affect coloration, or if compatable, but likely different. Therefore, you would probably get normal texas/black rat integrades that are het for both leucistic and white-sided. If you bred one of the crossed babies to the whitesided parent, you would get normal looking babies definitely het. whitesided and possibly het. leucistic, and whitesided babies. If you bred one of the babies back to the leucistic parent, you would get normal crosses definitely het for leucistic and possibly het whitesided, and whitesided babies. Now, if you bred baby to baby, you would get normals, possible het whitesided and leucistic, leucistic babies, whitesided babies, and probably leucistic/whitesided babies. The only problem is telling the ones that are leucistic from the ones that are leucistic/whitesided. Like trying to tell if a snake is albino or hybino. I would think the whitesided trait dims the light bulb like hypomelanism, while the leucistic trait takes the light bulb out completely like amelanism. So, you would probably have no way of knowing if the whitesided gene was homozygous in the leucistic animals without breeding trials to known whitesided snakes down the road. Basically, you would not be creating anything "new and improved" visually by mixing the traits IMO and as other have expressed, adding more mud to the already murky waters regarding the obsoleta morphs in general. I would not suggest this cross for any other reason than producing "snakes" with little to no value IMO.