Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is there suchs a form?? I have seen a few guys In NJ selling them. Are they true Black rats or Texas crosses? Anybody have any input? Thanks...

Well there are true leucistic black rats (not crossed with texas rats as far as I know), so they're probably right. Leucistic black rats tend to cost more than leucistic texas rats also.

Thanks for the info!! Any idea on who breeds them or has any for sale??

I worked at a pet store in KY where some lady brought in a leucistic black rat snake. She didn't even know what it was. If you're looking for some cool morphs of black rats check out my buddy, the KE's collection. You can contact him at the kyherpsoc.org message board. He always likes to post pictures of his stuff.

Since all Elaphe obsoleta sp. have the same scale counts, and the snake is Leucistic, how could you tell? You have to have faith in the breeder that he or she is telling you the truth.

There is also a move on to name the types of American Elaphe obsoleta by where they are found and to reduce them to three species. The mtDNA differs by area of the country where they are native. By this plan a Black Rat Snake from Eastern Maryland is not the same as a Black Rat from southwestern Wisconsin.