Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was sitting here reading all the posts and I came up with a thought so I thought I would ask all of you out there what your thoughts are on it. Which do you think is a larger demand for. Locale specific snakes or morphs. I used to always believe that the morphs were the demand, but I have noticed,especially with the retics and tree pythons/boa's, that there seems to be a large following of people interested in locale specific snakes. Also, would it be proper to label a morphed snake with a locale if one was alble to properly document it. For example I will use an albino retic. If some one came across a reputable importer/exporter that managed to come across an albino Salowasi male. You breed the male to several Salowasi females and then breed the offspring would it be proper to consider the offspring to be Salowasi albino retics. Just a thought that jumped in to my head while I am bored out of my mind here in Iraq. Thanks for all that respond, Todd

I had this discussion with a friend some years back. A mutant gene does not change the origin. It would also be a first in the retics. no one has done pure locale morphs, and the price would as well be higher than for standard morphs. As it is once any locale is crossed out with another it is no longer pure, no matter how many times it is bred back to pure animals. Boa people face this more often, after the crossing out albinos into B.c.c.
Notah

You have to remember, that albino is a mutant gene, and they are rare in the wild, because they are less desirable, they are rubbed out by natural selection.

Thank you for the posts. I must reiterate the first portion of my question and ask for the opinions of others on whether pure locales or the morphs are going to be the trend in the future. I can't see the morphs fading away but my suspicions have been raised by reading all the posts about lacale specific snakes. Any input would be greatly apreciated, Todd

And while there has indeed been a visible interest in specific localities in terms of numerous posts in these forums, I think that there are a few simple reasons for this. I think that due to the fact that the interest/subject is somewhat new that a lot of folks just really want to learn more about them. There really is not much mystery in where the morphs are, who's producing them, how big they get, how much they are, etc.

The second factor is that the locality-specific snakes seem to cost considerably less than many morphs. Being more affordable yet still offering something of a unique value has it's appeal.

Third, I think that the bulk of the interest in these locality-specific retics is by those who have an interest in breeding them so as to provide something relatively new, yet not the "run of the mill retic" which is virtually valueless in the current market. But personally I feel that the majority of these locality-specific retics will unfortunately lose their appeal except for maybe to the serious large python COLLECTOR, which there are very few.

In the last few years I have been swamped with requests and orders for retic morphs, but have only been asked once for a locality-specific snake. And this was for a sulawesi, just because the guy wanted something that would become HUGE. It was not for reasons concerning it's beauty, or the value in owning a pure locality. Just because it got big.

Don't get me wrong. I hope they catch on and remain popular. I like to see more interest and respect for these snakes, for whatever reason/s, rather than for them to just be considered as expendable trash because they can't sell for 30 bucks. I have it on good authority that some breeders sell their surplus retics to overseas meat markets or to the Asian market for the snake's gall bladders for some aphrodisiac crap that of course does not work. (when I get solid proof that this is true I am going to handle these chumps PERSONALLY)

So yes, I would like to see a boom in the locality specific retics. I have even been considering getting a few pairs after they have caught on and there are more reliable sources to obtain them from.

>>Thank you for the posts. I must reiterate the first portion of my question and ask for the opinions of others on whether pure locales or the morphs are going to be the trend in the future. I can't see the morphs fading away but my suspicions have been raised by reading all the posts about lacale specific snakes. Any input would be greatly apreciated, Todd
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