I originally picked up this melanistic leonis male back in August of last year. After trying everything I could think of to get him to eat, I decided to put him down for the winter.
Well, I brought him up last week and yesterday I offered him a live pinky. Checked on him this morning and no pinky but there was an obvious lump in his belly 


Normally I work with West Mexican tricolors, but I got a 1.2 group of MSP from John Lassiter a couple of years back. Randomly, the male was found dead one morning (the day after a feeding too). So I decided when I got another male, it might as well be a melanistic since you don't see many of them anymore.
Here are the two females that from John Lassiter - they'd be ready to go this year too (didn't brumate since I had no male).




Of course I went with MSP, I like lots of red on my snakes. But I also think everyone should have a black snake and a striped snake too 
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i work with tri-colored west mexican lampropeltis. some morph, some hobby, and some locale.
everyone is entitled to their options, but no one's opinion will ever change how i feel about the snakes i keep and breed.




