Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just saw/heard of these for the first time a few moments ago... don't recall their being mentioned here before either, sort of good looking animals... can any of you offer info on them?

Gerry
Link

Well, I see that his other stuff seems to look good and genuine. As you and other's already know, it is always possible to produce strange aberrant bloolines now and then in all sorts of species/subspecies. From what I can see in the tiny photo there, at least the beginning head/neck portion that is far more normal than the rest does seem to key-out as nelsoni, the temporal band, distance to the first set of triads from the head, the way the first black ring behind the head flairs out dorsally very abruptly all "seem" to look okay to me. It could very well be a hyper-melanistc line of nelsoni, but who really knows. The only thing I see that I don't like is that many of the light inner triad rings flair-out big-time ventro-laterally at the bottom, and that certainly is not a nelsoni characteristic whatsoever. In sinaloae and nelsoni they are typically very straight and narrow, but this could be caused by the aberrancy itself too I guess.

It would certainly be nice to see some of the other relatives that these snakes originated from though.

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

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

really cool looking. i would be surprised if its gnentic it looks like he just put some line breeding work in there. nice results.

is what gets my vote based on appearance. That said, they could easily have descended from animals collected at the heart of nelsoni range. Here's why:

From info and photos I've gathered from friends who live or spend large amounts of time in Mexico, it appears that the sinaloae and conanti look (including their wide red rings and "bigger" bodies) is common along the more mesic areas in the Pacific region of Mexico. The arcifera appearance (including increased melanin and smaller size) has evolved in the higher, drier, inland areas of the same region (i.e. the Laguna de Chapala area of Jalisco). The intermediate nelsoni is, as one would suspect, found in intermediate environs. Animals that look like nelsoni appear in arcifera and sinaloae habitat from time to time. Similarly, I've seen photos of animals from coastal Colima (as solid as nelsoni range gets) with both wide red bands and with heavy black crossovers (in addition to more normal nelsoni, of course). This is blending of characterists especially common in areas areas where the habitat and climate grade from one into another, and the snakes' appearance does too. These intergrade zones are sometimes very vast, resulting in animals with a blended appearance being found over many miles. Gene flow is awesome.

Call them subspecies, pattern classes, geographically constrained (mostly) ecomorphs, or whatever. They're both the same AND different. While they're all "Pacific Region L. triangulum" and genetic work has shown them to be a cohesive body, the characterists that have evolved which make each population unique and generally identifiable are valuable and interesting... and ultimately worth preserving in both the wild and captivity.

I'd like to end by stating that I'm not in any way claiming that the breeder of the Black Panther nelsoni is crossing animals or misleading his buyers. Those animals may actually have locality data for all I know.

-Cole

Great post Cole!

Yes, arcifera would surely better explain the very pronounced dark dark pigment and cross-overs. Heck, as we both know Shannon produced some very melanized solid black and white Lake Chapala arcifera a while back too. This would make better sense that they very likely have strong arcifera geneflow...*shrug*.

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

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

this morning to the site owner asking what he knew about them and if he breed them himself... really like the looks of them whatever they are.

Gerry

I shot you an e-mail.

-Cole

I agree they look a lot like the L.t.arcifera that I have. I guess being closely related they could both have that same color phase or the owner may not be familiar with the Lake Chapalas and don't know what they are. See photos of a couple of my Lake Chapalas.

Wildlines, great photo's thanks for sharing. If you don't mind me asking. Are your animals related to Shannon B's? I have seen some high black nelsoni offered at several show's but never really looked real close to see if they key out to arcifera
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Jimmy Tintle

I recently purchased 3 adults that were produced in 08 by Shannon. 2 of those are the photos you saw. I have 4 other adults that came from Stan Draper who got them directly from Applegate. All total 4 males and 3 females. Draper said that he was never able to breed them but I have eggs incubating now after the first try. I have 1 more female that I am hopeful about this year, will have to wait and see.

What gets me is none of the older arcifera from Applegate have much black like others I have seen including the ones from Shannon. It's like there are 2 color phases or just a lot of variation. attached are a couple of the older animals from Applegate.

Wow, and to think a couple of years a go I wrote off trying to find Applegates line, figured they fell by the wayside and never to be found again in the hobby. I can admit I didn't research extensively but every where I looked I came to a dead end. I really guess posting here on KS would have been something you would have seen or someone else. I am glad to see someone still keeping the lines true and not a mix of ruthveni and/or sinaloae or nelsoni

Congrats on getting eggs, post some pics when they hatch would like to see, the variability of them. Do you also have eggs from Shannon's line?
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Jimmy Tintle

Very informative post as always... hopefully I'll hear something back concerning those Black Panthers proving your ideas/thoughts correct.

Nice looking animals imo whatever they are... now if I could just remember what I was searching for that caused me to stumble upon that site!

Gerry

"Back in the day" he advertised those in "Vivarium" magazine (and used the same photo as the one on his website).

Tim

Just curious if anyone has had contact with Bob. I've emailed and left voice messages and nothing.

I talked with Bob several times last year when I was tracking down his old stock of Jalisco milks(Tapalpa ruthveni) and Lake Capala milks(L.t.arcifera). My last contact with him was October 26, 2010.