Reptile & Amphibian Forums

In what order did the following snakes enter the hobby?
Graybands, Thayer's, Greer's, Potosi's, Ruthven's, Tarahumara Mtn. Kings and Baja Mtn. Kings. Anybody know?

Or when was the first captive breeding of each achieved?
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www.hcu-tx.org/

I don't know who started with what, but here is an interesting account of earl attempts.
www.applegatereptiles.com/articles/breedgreeripyro.htm
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Ah yes I actually have the original publication but haven't looked at it in many years. It's interesting that he actually obtained wild caught greeri in 1979, I'd forgotten about that. Now that I think about it I believe Lloyd Lemke also had wild caught ruthveni and mex mex that he was still working with as recently as the mid 1990's.
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www.hcu-tx.org/

Great question!

I believe that the potosi's, thayers and greeri came into the US in numbers in the 70s and possibly late 60s. Certainly some folks were breeding them by the mid 70s if not before. FR can answer this better. I just find it interesting that a few people were successfully producing snakes (like cornsnakes and kingsnakes) in the 60s.

I always thought that baja mtn kings came into the US much later, like in the late 80s or early 90s, but this may not be the case. Looks like a few people were catching these long before that after they figured out the Calif Mtn kingsnakes and then went south. Not sure about the captive breeding of them.

I hope someone answers this question...

Thanks Mark, I think this is an interesting question. It just so happens I had a talk with an old friend recently what was key to this subject.

The key to understanding this is, there was no trade or hobby the way its thought of now. There was a handful of radical dingbats, running around chasing things. There were also a handful, actually less then a handful of radical dingbats keeping things. And one real radical dingbat that did both, me.

I say dingbats become there was NO money in it. And no money in the economy. And people grip now. hahahahahahaha

Without money, there is no trade as we know it. There was also no value in finding new species. Without a trade(money) there is no interest, scientific or otherwise. So we were dingbats running amuck. End of part 1

The history, Dr. Bechel(sp) actually produced the first item, albino corns, but gave them away, so no value was put on them. Consider, to get others envolved besides us few dingbats, there needed to be some value.

I produced the first albino kings. As usual, I am different. I told myself, I would not give away any albinos, like I did the generations upon generations of kingsnake morphs I had previously produced. I set a price of $300 each and stuck by my guns. And it worked, I sold a few.

Now the key, a Cali boy, named John, got envolved and made it a business. He bought up whole lots of snakes and resold them with so many strings attached, I could not believe it.

He created a value, and a market. That market IS the base of the trade. Without that, we would still be giving our snakes away. It started with Albino kings, which helped place value on albino corns, and the run was started. End part 2

The answer to your question.

I was already producing hundreds of Blairs and pyros(stopped in 1976 due to law changes) In the early seventies, I started collecting blairs and alternas in 1970, and bred the beans out of them. Again, without John cali boy, and the others he recruited, Which included many famous breeders, the Lemkies and the Steves. There would be no market. The numbers I produced is mentioned in Denny Millers Blairs book. I have it somewhere.

So blairs and alternas were first, including striped, totally speckled etc.

Now lets cross the border. Tom a doorman in Las Vegas, caught the first Greeri, it crawled across his foot.

Tom become friends with a local group of yahoos from Tucson, herp students under Dr. Lowe. They were NUTS I tell you. and my friends. They spend the summers in mexico attempting to collect, they were not good collectors. But they tried. Some of their stories should be made into movies. They collected greeri and mex mex. Unfortunately, some bad things happened, Game and fish took exception. What was really funny was, they would advertise in the Chicago herp newletter, in advance and take down payments. To many stories. I worked at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a fellow worker and long time herper, C Hansen, The guide to That fella who wrote the keeper and the kept, fame. Took exception and all heck broke loose. Or there would have been far more in the trade.

SOoooooo I and my friend Dead Ted(cali boy) received a permit thru Dr. Carlos Negal, a sea turtle biologist, and down we went. Seperately a couple of Cali boys also hit the trails.

Its hard to say, which species was collected first, I would guess greeri. By the busted Tucson boys and the Cali boys. Then Mex mex, again by those two groups. But they were not established first. End part 3

Ruthivens kings was not known to science, then a bio studend of Marufka(sp) from Cal state(DHills) was studying scelops and trapped a Kingsnake which they published as the missing link between milksnakes and Mexicana.

Then a couple of other yahoos, Again, one from Tucson, who became a PHD and a real weirdo from the northwest. Collected three more. Then dead ted and I, found the fifth thru the 27th or there abouts(in two mournings and one afternoon.

My permit was for six, so I took five. 2.3 I did not want adults. These two groups were the beginning, as both were established by captive breeding.

At the exact same time, The PHD fella started working on Thayeri. He also wrote a paper and I was a field worker for him. Again, luck would have it, we had permits. And there is a real funny BAD story on this as well. Both The PHD and I, were successful in captive breeding. And both our animals entered the trade. But as luck would have it, those two cali boys were hot on our heals and also obtained thayeri. So three groups entered the beginning of the trade. Mine were first, see there is reason for my Heatum and feedum, approach.

With these two species, both the albino ruthies and the black thayeri were attached, I collected the first black thayeri and The PHD collected the parents to the albinos and hets for black thayeri. hahahahahahahaha He was a terrible field guy but lucky as heck. I mean, he only found two thayeri and three ruthies, come on, how lucky can you get. To tell you the truth, he worked is arse to do that. His efficiency rating was about one snake a month. hahahahahahaha, which is why he brought me along.

So we have,

1. alterna(all phases)
2. Thayeri, hardest to find, but was captive bred right off.
2a. Ruthies,

Both mex mex and greeri were both collected, but were not captive bred for many years. Then some more cali yahoos, Worked greeri and mex mex and they were established. Its here that B.A. finally became envolved with. Lemke was yet to build his barn.

So we have,

1. alterna, pyro came before all these, but that was not asked about
2. thayeri
2a. Ruthies
3. greeri
4. mex mex.

Then a group of Texans, started by some grey haired freek a great person, got the Tara-pyros going, then other Texans, but it took another stinking Cali boy to drive the nail in the board.

So 5. tarahu's

I hope you have fun reading this, there are lots of really funny stories in all this. Also, I found mex mex and greeri, but was whupped by those other freeks. Of course, there has to be something missing, as others were envolved, but did not play important roles in this movie. The important point is, Cali John, the controller of all things business. Without his marketing skill, there would be no start to the mags and the shows and shoeboxes and all this non-sense. Unfortunately, some folks like the Lemkies, took credit or better yet, were given credit, because they came later and did such things as publish price lists. I never had to do that, my surplus went to those Cali pricelist makers, then to the rest of the U.S., then the world. That's my story and I am sticking to it. All names are either real or made up, including mine! Enjoy

Wow! Crazy thing is that I got snakes from your "Cali John" decades ago but did not know then his place in this history of the herp industry (I am from So California too). I remember the south of the border specimens he had, just amazing.

I met a few more people along the way and only now realize their significant role in making these animals available. I was just too young at the time I suppose or else not aware enough.

I was a lad, there was a store called Hermosa Reptile in So Cal. My older brother took me there, and I saw snakes I had never seen before or in books. Judging by the time frame, those snakes must have come from some of the early important players in your story. Am I correct? I saw one snake in particular in a back office on the desk of someone my brother was speaking to. I could not believe it. Just awesome, and setup nicely. Not for sale, though I pleaded. I left with a $3 spadefoot toad instead, that thing lived a long time.

Hi Mark, funny about Hermosa reptile and wild animal exchange. I worked there for a while. Also my mexico field partner, dead ted, worked there for a long time, he lived in Manhattan beach.

That shop was owned by Ray Folsom and he was a cargo plane pilot. At the time, the laws were no so tight, he literally brought in reptiles from all over the world including Australia.

He was a Crot nut as well. When I worked there. He had a complete collection of rattlesnakes(for the time) Chuck McClugn(sp) was the manager.

Another Friend had a reptile store a little to the south called Mother Natures, he lives in Tucson now. Dead Ted also worked there. Dead Ted is now dead.

I saw some unusual things working there and they weren't reptiles. They were human. Best wishes

Thanks! That's some great history. Somebody should write a book about this stuff!
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www.hcu-tx.org/

I think Bill Love did, but he did it from a easterner's point of view, which was not accurate in the least.

Like I said, John called me a couple months ago and I hadn't talked to him in forever. We did talk about this. He is quite about his part. But I give him all the credit in the world for What we have today.

So many people criticized him back then and now, as he is about the money. But it took money to support the TRADE. There would be NO reptile shows, no magazines or anything like that without money.

I also think all these animals would have been banned from keeping if there was no money envolved. You must realize, if any business or hobby does not contribute to our countries tax base, then it will be outlawed.

Its always been odd to me that so many people divide the love of reptiles and money, in reality, there is not division and they go hand in hand. Greed, is something else and is not a good thing in any walk of life. Thanks

HA HA HA! Classic great stories! I especially loved the parts about John.
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"So I will end with, your now aware of the problem, what YOU do is entirely up to you. Now if you make THIS mistake, its not because you are ignorant."

Frank Retes

Great details Frank. Thanks for sharing.
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

>>In what order did the following snakes enter the hobby?
>>Graybands, Thayer's, Greer's, Potosi's, Ruthven's, Tarahumara Mtn. Kings and Baja Mtn. Kings. Anybody know?
>>
>>Or when was the first captive breeding of each achieved?
>>-----
>>www.hcu-tx.org/

I did not read all of the replies but the two people to ask are very hard to contact. One is Steve Hale and the other is no longer with us....Lloyd Lemke. Steve Hale and his colleagues collected the first of many of those on your list South of the Border. Llemke went later and collected some more. But I think Steve Hale along with Ernie Wagner and Frank Retes bred the first Thayeri and Mex Mex in captivity.......Greeri and Ruthveni were after that....
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

Hi John, the person in one of my stories is the Steve you mentioned. Only he did not produce much and Ernie Wagner was a second generation Blairs man. He never saw an alterna until I moved down the street from him. I pulled up to his house in a moving van and he said, Frank, I will take care of your snakes while you get settled and he did. Those were great days. But well after the Tucson boys had their way with mexico.

There were two more that would go with steve. There problem was, they were gone all summer snake hunting and the snakes they had previously collected died while they were gone. And the snakes they collected early in their trips, were toast by the time they made it back.

I of course cheated, I would go, get the target species, feed them while in the field and return. I was interested in Good animals, not just animals. None of them were actually breeders or field herpers, in fact they were crazies, hahahahahahahahahaha

One in that group lived right across the street from me.

I should not mention this but once he called me from mex, saying he would be longer then expected and would I go look after the animals. To put it short, it was a nightmare. IT was not pretty.

There are so many stories it was ridiculous. Once Steve took a land cruiser FJ40, I had one also, he came back from mex and both front fenders were gone. I asked what happened, he said, I hit a cow with that one and rolled a boulder on the other one. hahahahahahahaha On another trip he rolled it.

Once I was down there in the middle of absolutely nowhere and way up the road I saw a land cruiser coming my way. It turned out to be Steve and Ron, I had no idea they were there. Again crazy times.

haven't seen them in a while. Best wishes

Frank......I need to pick your brain over a few things......email me please. Jlassiter.cbcb@gmail.com
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...