Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I saw this photo as a kid, it was in several books with a lot of bad information (the only herp care books that were available then)...

anyway, this photo started it for me. I promised myself that I'd work with indigos one day when I saw this pic!

I do! Makes me think of the time my sisters boyfriend hatched out a nice clutch back in 1975 or so, this was in Homestead, FL.
I remember him letting me hold the babies, but I was sort of scared of snakes at the time!LOL If I knew then what I know now...
Cheers
B

Dean,
Yes, I remember that pic well.... along with all the others that continue to stoke the fire of my interest in indigos.I saw that pic first in "The T.F.H. Book of Snakes" by Tom Leetz. The photo is by Jeff Gee. Remember the other pic of the female E. Indigo in the plastic shoebox with all those eggs beside her? Maaaaaan....I bred Eastern Indigos only once in '94, and I've been telling myself I really need to get back into them again. Great snakes with a personality unmatched in the serpent world. Hey Dean, you've motivated me to head toward the book case for some much needed reminiscing!
Cheers,
Mike Collalto

hey dean,

that was the photo that did it for me. it was 1970 and i was determined to get an indigo or a boa. all i had was kauffeld's "the keeper and the kept" and a ditmars, a pope, and a schmidt. i ended up getting a 3' red tail for $10 because no one could get an indigo in portland, OR.

i had to wait 32 years before i finally got the indigo. and i still have the book ("know your snake".

matt

I remember all those books and in fact, still have them!!!!!!
-----
Carl W Gossett
Garage Door Herps
Monument,Colorado...northern territory of the Great Republic of Texas

Heck yeah I remember it. Saw it as a kid. It WASN'T the photo that started it all for me though, THAT prize goes to a COLOR DRAWING of an Eastern Indigo in...you guessed it...THE LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK OF REPTILES!! And I too had to wait many, many years before I actually came across one or could keep them in MY house. Thanks for sharing Dean, I too am off to the boxes in my garage with old articles and books in them.

God Bless You,

Fred Albury

Just bumped into that little book the other day. Didn't even know I had it and havent's seen it for 35 or so years, at least.Or maybe I just dreamed I saw it--I'm still not sure exactly where it is. But that Indigo picture when I was a kid, oh man! Many of the "type specimens" in my head are from those drawings, and even though I have seen lots of photos and lots of real specimens since then, those drawing are still how they are supposed to look in my head ( for many species). Somehow one of those great, inspiring little books that seem to be associated with some vague dreamy previous life.

First reptile book I ever had.

I can sit here and visualize the illustrations of almost all of the snakes from that book! I think I read it and looked at the pics until it literally fell apart.

I remember that indigo illustration...red face...in a barn hunting right? I think it was across from the corn snake pic that showed a very somber-colored corn snake, also in a barn, completely wrapped around a mouse.

You know that book also really screwed me up when I was a kid too...here's why: I was just barely reading when I read it the first time. I remember a section in the beginning called the "fallacies" or "folklore" something like that. Whatever it was called, I didn't understand the meaning of the word.

All I knew is that underneith it had illustrations such as "toad causing warts", "snake rolling like a hoop" and "snake whipping man with tail"

...since I didn't understand the meaning word fallacy, superstition...whatever it was, I thought the book was telling you these things as FACT...and I believed them until I was a bit older and had a better vocabulary and read it again!

At first I was amazed at how we all have those pics burned into our brains. But then when you think about the dearth of information that was available and how long we all stared at those pics with hearts pounding....

I'm still looking for a breeding pair of hoopsnakes....with the stinger cut off of course.

Every time I think of a rainbow snake, I see that drawing from the golden guide...the snake is on a log basking and their is a fly on the log next to the snake.

Seriously...I have not seen that book since I was a kid, but i guarantee their is a fly on the log next to the rainbow snake.

It's in my mind just like a snapshot.

Also...I can see all the pics on the "snakes" section from the World Book encyclopedia. There was a Sonoran mtn king wrapped around a pine cone...and a corn snake that to this day is the prettiest one I can ever remember seeing (if memory serves me right). I went out in the 6th grade on a mission to get a corn snake after I saw that photo.

I got one...but it was nothing like the one in the photo

A FEW books is ALL we had...DEANS NOT kidding.
But it seems like those books were akin to the Bible, and then some. For me....for Dean...for anyone here to remember those small books as if they were in front of us.......20....30..35 years after the fact..is AMAZING to me.

We had less, but cherished it more.
think of the WEALTH of information
available online today, at our
fingertips. I wonder if this new
generation of herpers will have any
memories burned so deeply in their
minds as those were for us.

Id like to think so...

Yes....I remember the pick of the corn wrapped around the mouse, I also remember the pic of the watersnakes...of the ringneck snake.......and of the eastern kingsnake.

AMAZING how that book influenced ALL OF US.

ITS like a tale out of a Stephen King novel.
MAYBE we are all supposed to gather in one place in the future for some project that we know nothing about.

THINK about it...its not JUST shared memories, but the way in which those same memories affected us and made us what we are today(Reptile wise). More than coincidence.

On a psychic tip...

Fred Albury
Aztec Fred

It would be so cool to have a get together with all the indigo forum regulars. I have met a few, but I feel like I have gotten to know so many of you over the years.

It'd be cool we could all get together for a herping trip or something. But...people have so many obligations...and there's the money thing...

Wow, World Book! I spent more time with that 's' volume as a kid than I did doing homework, and that kingsnake photo blew my mind. The black bands looked almost blue, so for a long time I thought of Sonoran kings as having a 'flag' color scheme.

The indigo shot you posted, on the other hand, was one I didn't see until pretty late. The photo that immortalized couperi for me was the black and white overhead shot of an adult coiled on a linoleum floor. I remember it from 'Snakes as Pets', but it appears in other TFH books, like Breen's 'Encyclopedia of Reptiles and Amphibians'. Even now, that's my favorite indigo photo. Breen's book also made Spilotes into a sort of holy grail for me.

Thanks for posting the pic!

Steve

LOL...I went back and looked at the old books I had "readily available" and saw the indigo pic you mentioned tonight.

We really owe a lot to those few who came before us. If everyone who saw a snake had a shovel in their hand our lives would be much poorer.

That book was/is a classic. I recently picked up a Spanish language version, with many of the same illustrations. I thought it might help me learn Spanish, since I practically memorized the English version 40 years ago! I remember the Collared lizard with a horned lizard in its maw...and of course that big red throated Dry and the corn snake constricting a mouse with a hoe lying by it. And regarding fallacies...the cottonmouth was hypnotizing a cardinal! Thanks for the memories...Vic

Yes! The hypnotic powers of the cottonmouth! Hah! It's all there! Thanks, Dean for soking the embers!
Todd Hughes

...and back in..at my elementary school's library ..only to re-check it out!
Actually in and around those years (pre-listing) I had a few and bred them. I don't remember having as much difficulty as many of the keepers these days have with it. I was 10-12 and had decided they were IT as a "pet snake". Of course you could buy one for $25.
Kept them outdoors and they really responded to direct sunlight. I remember being surprised by 6-7 big ol' eggs one day. Then I watched another pair copulate and thought they might be trying to fight or something! HA!
We used either damp sphagnum ar even newspaper back then for incubation media. Again, outside on the porch. I imagine temps in the 80's.
Ahh...the good ol' days! huh?
:Mark

Carries me back to my childhood. Do you remember the photo of the little girl---I think it was Ross Allen's daughter-- holding a juvenile Indigo? Classic stuff!
Best Regards-
Jim Lineberger
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"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he can never lose."
Jim Elliott