Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I acquired this male (below) on breeder loan from Brandon Osborne in 2008. Immediately i thought there was no way this animal was a "normal" wildtype phenotype. Initially i figured it was a hypomelanistic due to the intense coloration, aberrance, tailing striping, patternless belly and some weird white scales (some of which formed a "line" down his back). So i Bred him to a Hypomelanistic Female. Being that he was 100% het Lavender I also bred him to a lavender female.

"Sulphur" Male

You can see some of the white scales in this aerial pic:

The F1's were at 1st disappointing:

Hypo X "Sulphur" resulted in all normal hets... none of which were visually different than any normal floridana hatchling. so my thought was the "sulphur" was just a nice wildtype variation.

After a few feedings/shedding they picked up color but they still look like hi-yellow normals today.

Lavender X "Sulphur" resulted in lavenders (which were above average yet nothing spectacular) and "normal" wildtypes which i labeled as "Het Lavenders" from sulphur line. I held onto a "Normal" male (Now in Jorge S.'s collection) and two lavender Females

Parental Lav & "Sulphur"

F1 Spotted Female

F1 Spotted Female (Few months old)

F1 Aberrant Female

F1 Aberrant Female(Few months old)

F1 Het Male

(continued)

I bred the F1 Hypo x Sulphur as well as F1 Lavenders back to the Parental "Sulphur" male.

In all three clutched i produced HyperXanthic Morphs. So the "Sulphur" is actually a mutation and every animal he's every sired is carrying this recessive gene.

Parental "Sulphur" X F1 Sulphur Lavs

HyperXanthics (het Lavender)
Clutch 1

Clutch 2: this started as a clutch of 15 tiny "popcorn" eggs. 4 went bad and these hatched out really small but i have no doubt they'll grow quickly, the smallest hatchlings seem to always eat 1st for me.

HyperXanthic-Lavender (clutch 2)

*Lavenders (het HyperX) and Normal 2x het (Lav and HyperX) also produced.*

That last one is insaine! They all lokk very exceptional, but that last one is a punch in the face! Dang, I'm glad i bred that male I got from you to several of my females inluding a Sulfur Lav and a snow! I guess I'll have to keep all those babies. Let me get back to making more racks. Thank You Zenny for all your help bro!
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
Jorge Sierra

My Site > www.Sierrasnakes.com

Thanx man, and no prob! Yea that hyper-lav will be a looker within a few shed cycles! I hope I get a few more if my 2x clutches are successful.

~Z

Beautiful! I want a purple snake :-D

That forth piture of that SNAKES head up close looks just like that nastyass alien ET in that movie ET when ET points his nastyass long skiny finger at that little kid and it lights up and it looks like ETs head and nastyass long skiny neck to and such. That's a prety great piture to keep up the great work! Your SNAkES are the bom. Are you still mad at me Z?!!!! Please stay things back to me A.S.A.P.?!!!!! I love your SNAKES ok! There prety great!

I really hope you are a very young lad... Thanx for the compliment

Well I was excited about my first clutch of the year lavenders and snows hatching.

Parental HyperXanthic and Hypermelanistic

To be honest i'm a bit disappointed in the results of this pairing. I expected the hypos to be a lot more vivid right out of the egg. Even the Hyper-Hypo 2x Homozygous looks drab to me. However, i've learned that you must give the "sulphur" phenotype time to develop so we'll see what they look like after a some feeding & shedding. I hope to duplicate the original paring with new females from better phenotypes for both the Lavender and Hypo projects.

HyperXanthic-Female: currently "M.I.A" i have no clue when she got loose but i hope she returns

1.1 Hypomelanistics

Male

Female

1.0 HyperXanthic-Hypomelanistic

*Normal poss hets also produced*

~ZF

Wow Zenny!,........some awesome looking stuff goin on there. The yellow coloration in that hyper-xanthic sulfur animal is just insane!!

And you're right, it seems that those sulfur's really do need time to display their more intense coloration. Certainly one of the time consuming aspects of quite a few floridana types to actually see what they become, but all part of what makes them so interesting too at the same time.

Cool stuff!

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

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Thanx Doug,

If they all turn out like their sire I'll be very pleased! I get small feeders this weekend so I'll be stuffing them all...

I'm tempted to keep um all!

~Z

I love this one.

I wonder if this is whats going on when I bred my Whitesided hypo to a peabino 9Lavender x Peanut butter). the quad hets babies were normals but came out looking a very light.
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www.Bluerosy.com

4x het (PB/Lav/WS/Hypo)

Jeremy Thompson
Captive Born Investments Inc.

Yeah, that is one of the ones I produced last year. I bet the same thing is going on with them as the ones zenny just produced.

Thanks jeremy!
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www.Bluerosy.com

I don't think we are dealing with the same "thing" here.

Simply because those quad whets have ruby pupils and appear more "hypo" looking. What they are is a mystery certainly. They aren't "wild type" or hypo from the look of things

I hope to breed "sulphur" x "extreme flame" this season 2 figure if they are the same gene with simply a different phenotype ( red vs yellow)

The lavender I used was from a sulfur. So i was thinking the HyperXanthic trait was from the sulfur.

also the eyes don't look ruby to me when they were young. Maybe they lighten as the one jeremy posted was a yearling.

6 mos old

newborn:

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www.Bluerosy.com

Possible but where'd the ws-hypo acquire the gene?

I would think there is some relation to those and your "Golden PBs" before I'd say they were Hypers. Could just be varied phenotypes but those snakes look hypo as hatchlings... Most of the Hypers hatched out dark I almost thought females (not pictured in post) were "normal"; that was until a normal/wild type emerged.

What you have there is anyone's guess... Breeding trials should prove/ disprove some theories.

Also forgot to mention. Some of the babies from the quad clutch of mine also came out White WHITE like yours did. I didn't take pics of them to post. But they had the wide white bands as well. When i saw the pics of yours is what reminded me of mine.

I have no idea why they turned out like this. They are deintly not PB. And the WS does not have lav in it. Sometimes these gentics do some weaird things and surprise us.

One thing is for sure. breeding trials with quad hets (or just identifying them) will be challenging when so many new possibilties come out.
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www.Bluerosy.com

Congrats Zenny, good lookin stuff! I like that spotted lav and that hyper lav, I bet they will look even better in a few weeks!

Jeremy Thompson
Captive Born Investments Inc.

~ZF

Great Post Zenny!!! Congrats on the new morph!
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Jimmy Tintle

really awsome stuff!, congrats
,,,,,,,,,,,thomas davis
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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

~ZF

I don't think that Sulfur in and of itself is a recessive trait. You can breed a sulfur king to a normal FL king and the resultant F1 offspring will have usually have sulfur traits in their banding and coloration. That is how it has worked out when I've done it.

Additionally, the strong yellow is a normal trait for the area from which the sulfur kings originate, even in the really dark kings. It isn't at all linked to lighter or brighter coloration.

My guess would be that Brandon's male is showing or carrying another hypomelanistic trait that is genotypically distinct from the common Love/Krysko/Beard hypo brooksi trait. I remember when Brandon produced a clutch from his pair he had some that he thought were hypo. I saw 1 or 2 similarly hypoish offspring come out of a another breeder's clutch from the same line I work with. The only thing I've produced from my sulfurs thus far is this:

Pre-shed pic

I agree "sulphur" is not recessive but rather a high yellow/orange phenotype.

However I wouldn't call this trait hypomelantistic. The adult male does appear to display a form of hypomelanism but floridana change sooo much from hatchlings to adults. The offspring from this guy hatched out dark (there were a few exceptions); The females especially. The dark pigments range from black to dark brown which isn't hypomelanistic... Calling it hyperXanthic does reflect the sulphur influence which leaves the possibility that this mutation may look completely different (lack yellow/orange) if it popped up in a "drab" phenotype. @ this point I'm running on the theory that the "sulphur" & the "extreme flames" are the same gene one being red the other yellow. Hopefully I can prove/ disprove it.

I remember that clutch from Brandon; there was what I believe to be a hyper-lav (I think Tom Stevens owns it now) and @ least one "hyperX" I could make out from the pic. My eyes glued onto that hypoish hatchling immediately.

Killer animal! Reminds me of the one Doug popped out but it may turn out better looking with the "sulphur" aspect. I really like the white head. I've bred lots of different morphs but they always seem to turn out looking "classic" ... Do you notice more aberrancy like the one you posted from sibling x sibling pairings or is it really just random?

All the sulfur breedings I've seen any time recently have been sibling to sibling, and it seems like every clutch has at least 1 or 2 weirdo snakes. I've got 5 eggs cooking right now from a sibling breeding. Eventually I want to breed 2 weird ones together to see what comes out.

I should be getting an updated pictured of that wide orange banded sulfur soon. The guy who has it now says it looks awesome.

I look forward to seeing how the "hyperX" trait plays with future breedings!