Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A friend of mine who has been experimenting with black rat X everglades recently gave me an f3, the father was pure black rat the mother was half everglades, half black rat. well I am very curious to know what my little guy will turn out like, and my friend isnt sure about what genes are recessive/dominant, if its even that cut and dry. does anyone have experience with this intergrade?
here is a pic of my little guy.
http://www.studioedwards.com/photos/img16680_4w.jpg

any ideas from his appearance now, what he might turn out like later? Thanks

As far as recessive/dominant, one species is not dominant over the other. It should be about 75% black rat in its genes, so it will probably look more like a black rat than an everglades. I havent worked with that intergrade so I cant tell you everything. Some traits could be more dominant in one species than the other, but I would expect more of a codominant demonstration of traits.

The only one I have seen looked like a generic Black Rat with orangish undertones. Frankly, it didn't look that good.

It cannot be an F3 if the parents are different species (sub species). An F3 is the second generation. F1 would be the original parents (black and everglades) F2 would be thier offspring. F3 generation is the offspring from the F2 snakes.

Most true hybrids can't make it past the F2 (sterility). That is why rat snakes are technically one species, because thier "hybrid/integrades" are fertile.

actually it goes P F1 F2 F3...etc..and many generations as you keep track of..... P being the parent generation with an unknown genotype (the black rat and the everglades) f1 being the first hybrids, bred back to oneanother to produce the chocolate brown f2, the brown f2's bred to a pure black rat to produce my little f3. f1 is not the parent generation, f1 is the result of the first breeding. I know about this stuff, just not the eventual phenotype of my rat snake since this is my first true rat snake (excluding my central american tiger rat, not a real rat )

Hard telling what the little guy is going to turn out looking like, however he does have alot of orange tint to it as a hatchling! Where a black rat hatchling looks more like a gray rat and darkens with age. An everglades has a pinkish/orange tint to its background color and also darken to a nice orange with age and the saddles turn into stripes, or disappear. Could turn out to look like a dark greenish rat! Pretty interesting either way, and you will have to keep us updated on the little fellow by posting pics periodically of his ontogenetic change!

This is why I love the rat snakes, variable across the board and great hearty snakes!!!!
Brian

A pic of my greenish rat snake.

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RATS
1.0 Corn snake "Warpath" (KY locale)
1.0 Black rat snake "Havok" (KY locale)
1.1 Black rat snakes "Reaper and Mystique" (MO locale)
1.0 Albino Black rat snake "Malakai" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Everglades rat snake "Deadpool" (Dwight Good stock)
0.1 Greenish rat snake "Rogue" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Yellow rat snake "Wolverine" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Grey rat snake "Punisher" (White oak phase)(Dwight Good stock)

MILKS
0.0.1 Eastern Milk snake "Cable" (KY locale)
0.0.1 Eastern/Red milk intergrade "Omega Red" (KY locale)
Good luck and Happy Herping
Brian

Thanks for your insight! that is a neat looking greenish snake. I'll periodically post pictures as my little hybrid grows and changes