Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I picked up this young (yearling?) pyro in the Santa Ritas on Sunday. It is VERY skinny and drank a ton of water when I offered. There are pattern abberancies from head to tail. This is the first pyro I've spotted in the Santa Ritas after 10 years of hiking there.
Collecting pyros is restricted in AZ. You must have a valid hunting license to collect, and the max you may own is 4. Currently I have 1 beautiful, captive bred 2000male, and 2 unsexed snakes that I have collected.

Greg

This is the most skittish pyro I have ever dealt with, and photographing it was close to impossible. I hope to get better shots soon.

very interesting. it's neat that it came from the wild rather than captivity where its pedigree could be questioned. A cool find.

terry

I agree. I was always under the impression that Santa Rita pyros had reduced black. I suppose that there are always exceptions to the rules.

In the Huachucas I have seen very low band count, reduced black snakes, and I have also seen snakes with lots of crossovers and abberant patterns.

It seems that the higher elevation snakes have a higher tendency to have crossovers and abberant patterns, but I'm sure there are some exceptions to that rule out there as well.

Here is an abberant pattern, high altitude pyro I photographed and released last summer in the Huachucas.

Greg

Have these abberant pyros made it to the trade yet? Id like to pick up a pair.

>> It seems that the higher elevation snakes have a higher tendency to have crossovers and abberant patterns, but I'm sure there are some exceptions to that rule out there as well.
interesting, that would conform to louis porras' hypothesis that higher-altitude hondurans are the tricolors that darken with age, because the darker patterns would help those snakes better thermoregulate at their higher/colder habitats.
>>
>>Here is an abberant pattern, high altitude pyro I photographed and released last summer in the Huachucas.
is the aberration merely the ring a third of the way back that's broken? if so, this might be a good time to start a discussion of what's an aberration & what's not...yes, that is an aberration from a pattern of all fully-formed rings, perpendicular to the horizon, etc., but it might not be an aberration in terms of the norm...i see that kind of pattern break on many pyros & other tricolors...in fact, i use them as a sort of "bar code" to keep records on snakes, noting just a few of those creates a unique code that could pick a given snake out of 100. So is an "aberrant" snake one with an IMPERFECT pattern? or one with an abnormal pattern?
Interesting question, i think. At an extreme, a snake with more or fewer crossovers than the viewer is accustomed to could be considered aberrant, for example.

terry

I never thought of the increased black as a way to thermo-regulate.

As for what is an abberant snake or not, I agree maybe there needs to be a definition or criterea. Most pyros I have seen have at least some incomplete/imperfect triads. Two of my pyros (including one w/c), have a couple (1 or 2) incomplete/imperfect triads. The pyro I picked up Sunday has about half of it's triads as incomplete or imperfect. Maybe a certain percentage of the snake's overall pattern has to be abnormal to be considered abberant.

The Huachuca pyro I posted would not fit that definition. I felt it had a unique pattern with the two offset, incomplete triads mid-dorsally and the circular shaped white spot a little further back. It was a beautiful snake, possibly a gravid female. I'm glad let her stay free.

Greg