"The WS trait supposedly originated from the axanthics"
Yeah, I have heard that too, along with other stories. Here is what Norm (upscale) said about it a good while back. It's impossible for both stories to be correct though, unless the previously mentioned axanthics were descendants of this W/C white-sided animal.
Seems like there are WAAAY too many fine details here to be made-up by someone..LOL!
~Doug
WHITE-SIDED floridana HISTORY 12/8/09
posted by ~ Norm “Upscale”
The whitesided was originated from a single wild caught specimen found on September 17th, 1989. It was found under a fallen road sign in Deem City by Rubio Castro who was serving time and working along US Highway 27 picking up junk when Hurricane Hugo was two hundred miles from Florida and they were picking up loose debris in case it came towards Broward County. The snake was taken to the road crew supervisor, Matt Schenker because he liked snakes and was always checking the roadside while the crew were working. He didn’t know what he had, and brought it to a guy named Leo Dunbar who kept it for a month before selling it to the guy who started the line. The original was a male, and was bred to two female Brooks. One of those daughters was bred back to the father and the first whitesided and known hets were produced. The offspring were divided into two groups and sold to two different parties, unknown to each other that the other group existed. One guy was told they were from a wild caught het pair, and the other was told they were created from the witesided black rat, both lies, by the way. In addition, the original male and a single female were held back, also, without the investor’s knowledge. The original male died before breeding to the female, and the owner bred her to a Florida king male from the cane fields. That started a line that is not pure Brooks, but has been crossed with the other line and is wide spread as a part of the current whitesided line. They started out pure locality from south Florida until that pairing. Supposedly the line from the out crossed cane field crossing actually became a vigorous and bigger line. This breeder acquired a pair from one of the first investors as part of an agreement, and was able to jump start the project because the investor was not aware of the holdbacks. Within just a few years there were about six different people producing these snakes, and they just expanded like crazy and it seemed like all of a sudden everybody had them. Believe it or not, I admit it’s quite a story...
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing" 
my website -Serpentine Specialties
but I'm not planning on it because, well, possible het, not guarunteed
