Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here's the mom. She's an exceptional animal for this part of the world.

Here's dad. He was hit by a tiller of some sort a few years ago, which lacerated him in a few places. Dr. Sam Seashole stitched him up and he wound up coming to me ...he's doing great! He's about 6 ft.

np

Is this the hypo mugitus?

I used to have a collection of s. pines from Mark Bell's line and I had a few that looked almost exactly like this male.

It's a beauty, but I never thought they were hypo...from what I remember, some of them had very unusually dark (like black)

eyes...

Patternless mugitus do pop up from time to time, mostly in north GA, southern FL (I think). This could be a het patternless, if the trait allows both dom and rec to occur simultaneously. Of course, this is all speculation.

Van

Well, that would make sense since I know Mark Bell has some pattenless S pines in his group.

The original pair I had were very light...but produced a wide array of babies including some strongly patterned, and some that were like the one in the pic...and some that were like 50-60% patternless.

They are really cool snakes.

I'll try to get some better pics ... more detail ... but he definitely has a pattern, it's just "washed out" and a bit on the reddish-brown side. He is definitely from the melanoleucusxmugitus intergrade region of SC (Aiken Co.) so I wouldn't call him a patternless southern. I am no "morph" expert, but I've been referring to him as hypomelanisitic due to the reduced amount of melanin (not complete lack of it) that he displays. The intergrades from this part of the world can tend to the light side with reduced pattern near the head anyway. SteveB

This patternless s.pine is from the Ocala area where they naturally occur. This trait is dominant not recessive. A pair of patternless pines will produce normal patterned individuals in the predicted ratios of any simple recessive trait, 1:4, if the parents are het. for normal. The Aiken male looks a lot like many of the Fl. s.pines with its washed out pattern, very nice.

Coming across a handsome devil like that out in the wild would really make my day! Definitely has a hypo look to me. I think the corn snake folks would call that a "ghost pine". What a beauty!