Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.
I feel like I'm the only person looking for old world relatives to lampropeltis. These old world "rat snakes" resemble lampros more that rats in my opinion, what are your thoughts?
Elaphe Bella:
Coronella Austriaca
Euprepiophis mandarina
-----
Pituophis c. annectans
Senticolis t. intermedia
Rhinechis scalaris
Elaphe bairdi
Lampropeltis zonata
Lampropeltis t. campbelli
Lampropeltis m. thayeri
Is that last one a axanthic Viatnamese Mandarin? I really want to get some of those, I like the bella and conspiculata a lot too. There are a people that work with them, just not enough. Everyone is into morphs now, most people do not even know about them. I just picked up a pair of patternless moellendorffi and some normals, not the same but really cool.
-----
Gerard
"Ten minutes to wapner..."
conspicillatus is what I meant to write.
-----
Gerard
"Ten minutes to wapner..."
Those elaphe conspicillata are killer too.....Man why is nobody getting these in the hobby. They are for sure some great looking specimens to start seeing in the classifieds.
-----
Yeah conspicillata. They are neat. I've seen some field report pictures of wild ones and some of them are dull unicolor brown as adults but some of them are beautiful, retaining alot of the red juvenille pattern. I bet there is locality variants that are just gorgeous. Somebody should be importing those.
-----
www.hcu-tx.org/
Bella and conspiculata are awesome but they are still pretty expensive at what? 2 grand each? Something like that.
Moelendorff's are awesome too. I hope somebody figures them out and establishes a solid group in captivity. That would be an accomplishment.
I like the Bamboo Rats too.
I recently got an adult pair of real Kunasir Island Rats virtually given to me, that are pure Lemke bloodline of old. The Lemke's were supposed to be the pure island ones, not mixed with the mainland form. If I recall correctly the mainland form is brownish grayish, kinda drab and the island ones are sexually dimorphic with one sex being greenish and the other sex bluish. I forget which is which though, lol. I don't want to probe them so I'm just gonna wait till they breed to find out. They remind me of Baird's Rats and so far they are really easy to take care of, aggresive mouse feeders, room temp backround and 80 - 85 hot spot.
What was the point again? Oh yeah everybody likes morphs, nobody just wants a cool species anymore. I kinda feel that way with these Kunasir's. They are a really cool locality variant that was kinda expensive(around $200ea) in the 1990's that has almost gone by the wayside. Actually they might be a very appropriate example because I think the reason they got crossed with the mainland form was because there was albinos. I'm not sure about that though.
-----
www.hcu-tx.org/
I really like the Bella! That word means beautiful in spanish.
-----
What's wrong with using CAUTION?!?!?!
King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
~ Jorge Sierra www.SierraSnakes.com
Spanish and Italian......
I've also noticed that bimacs and diones are ferry king like.......
-----
John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
>>Spanish and Italian......
>>
True! Post some pics of those Ferry Kings! 
-----
What's wrong with using CAUTION?!?!?!
King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
~ Jorge Sierra www.SierraSnakes.com
>>>>Spanish and Italian......
>>>>
>>
>>
>>True! Post some pics of those Ferry Kings!
Lol...what does that mean?
You mean my SALMON ones....lol
-----
John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
>>Spanish and Italian......
>>
>>I've also noticed that bimacs and diones are ferry king like.......
Very......
Stoopid fat fingers on my stoopid iPad......lol
Pink ones are ferry-like....lol
-----
John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
Are dione's and bimacs keeled?
Oreocryptophis porphyraceus are smooth scaled, seem to be lacking a neck where as most other ratsnakes have a skinny neck and larger heads, remind me allot of lampropeltis.
-----
Pituophis c. annectans
Senticolis t. intermedia
Rhinechis scalaris
Elaphe bairdi
Lampropeltis zonata
Lampropeltis t. campbelli
Lampropeltis m. thayeri
>>Are dione's and bimacs keeled?
>>
>>Oreocryptophis porphyraceus are smooth scaled, seem to be lacking a neck where as most other ratsnakes have a skinny neck and larger heads, remind me allot of lampropeltis.
>>
>>-----
Bimacs are very weakly keeled but diones are not keeled....
And I love bamboo rats.....Latacinctus is my favorite.....coxi are cool too cuz they look like race cars......lol
-----
John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
Latacinctus are pretty sweet, I think I like pulchra the best. I don't think you can go wrong with any of them though, they're all awesome!
-----
Gerard
"Ten minutes to wapner..."
I know, lol. I still got a chuckle from it.
-----
What's wrong with using CAUTION?!?!?!
King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
~ Jorge Sierra www.SierraSnakes.com
>>I know, lol. I still got a chuckle from it.
me too.....LOL
-----
John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
Those "Bella" are really nice I am hoping to be able to acquire some this fall....Those mandarins are killer too. Wish more people worked with them in the US. I also like oxyrhopus formosa and oxyrhopus melanogenys.
-----
I'm working on the the oxyrhopus right now, there are so many cool oxyrhopus down there, check out petola. They are supposed to be pretty easy to keep too. I'm waiting on my guibei now, maybe some petola too, we will see. The formosus and melanogenys are a lot more difficult, right now at least. I think the formosus is the coolest.
Not my pic, oxyrhopus formosus
-----
Gerard
"Ten minutes to wapner..."
How do you know that Lamps didn't turn into the old world rats etc? In other words maybe some proto-king scooted over at sometime? I have no idea just saying one isn't newer than the other. Old world is reference to the discovery of new lands i.e. the North and South American continents among others.
The scientific papers state that eurasian snakes crossed over to the americas but I don't rule out the possibility that maybe some north american snakes crossed over there and thus populated eurasia with the colubrids related to ours.
Japanese ratsnake x florida corn snake has happened in captivity and so has beauty snake x greenish ratsnake so the genetic distance between old world colubridae and new world is theoretically less that 20 million years.
To me, this means the possibility of old world lampropeltis that were possibly put under the umbrella taxon Elaphe as were many racer type snakes.
Lampropeltis getula used to be classified as Coronella getula.
Here is Coronella Girondica:
-----
Pituophis c. annectans
Senticolis t. intermedia
Rhinechis scalaris
Elaphe bairdi
Lampropeltis zonata
Lampropeltis t. campbelli
Lampropeltis m. thayeri
What I heard is that Frank Retes told Christopher Columbus some localities for New World Kingsnakes and that Columbus went searching for them. Thanksgiving was actually a celebration for when Columbus flipped his first temporalis. But Columbus only brought back one thayeri because he wasn't in Mexico for very long, in fact some of the history books don't even mention it. But since there was only one thayeri, and it was a male, when they got back Frank hybridized it with a bunch of Asceulapian Ratsnakes and he traded them with China and told them they were pure and when the Chinese found out they weren't pure they let them all go and that's where all the Asian Rats originated.
-----
www.hcu-tx.org/
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaahhhahahahahahahahaha!
Thanks bud, I needed that. They are all awesome, I can't wait get my moellendorffi in a couple days. I'm going to put a good size group together over the next year.
-----
Gerard
"I, rule the midnight air, the destroyer. Born, I shall soon be there, deadly mass."
HAAA!!!..HAHAHAAAHAHAHHAA!!!!!
-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing" 
serpentinespecialties.webs.com
"some are just born to troll and roll"
Definitely they resemble kings, especially Coronella.
I thought that present day kings may have come from a common answer in Central Mexico. Certainly likely for the montane kings and milksnakes. Maybe the Central Mexico ancestor came from Asia?
I have a new subject to google..
What is interesting is that the Bushmaster from Central America is considered closely related to pit viper ancestors from Asia, as the Bushmaster is rather primitive compared to North American pit vipers. The rattlesnakes are the newer and more advanced pits. So Asian gene flow made it to Central America at some point.
The Chinese lance heads are one of my favorites. They are so much like slender bothrops from SA, they just like cooler temps. The feas viper is the coolest snake from over there. They are suppose to be the link between vipers and elapids, crazy!
Protobothrops jerdoni jerdoni
Protobothrops jerdoni xanthomelas
Protobothrops xiangchengensis
Azemiops feae, freaking awesome snakes.
-----
Gerard
"Ten minutes to wapner..."
Gerard,
Awesome pics. So many interesting snakes out there that I don't see often enough.
I saw a pic of a Himilayan pit viper basking with some snow on the ground. To say some of these Asian pits like cooler temps is an understatement, lol.
I talked to some Zoo guys from Canada that did surveys in north Vietnam. He told me he found P. j. jerdoni actively hunting at 45 degrees, crazy! Mine like it in the 70's with just a little warm spot.
-----
Gerard
"I, rule the midnight air, the destroyer. Born, I shall soon be there, deadly mass."
I'll show you some info
http://vipersgarden.at/PDF_files/PDf-352.pdf
http://www.mendeley.com/research/molecular-systematics-new-world-lampropeltinine-snakes-colubridae-implications-biogeography-evolution/
-----
Pituophis c. annectans
Senticolis t. intermedia
Rhinechis scalaris
Elaphe bairdi
Lampropeltis zonata
Lampropeltis t. campbelli
Lampropeltis m. thayeri
Help, tips & resources quick links
Manage your user and advertising accounts
Advertising and services purchase quick links
