Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just got these about a week ago.
I will have to wait until 2007 at the earliest to possibly see my first albino/striped Ruthveni.
These are double hets for amelanism and genetic striping....
Produced by Justin Mitcham.....Lloyd Lemke Ruthveni.

I think the normal stripes and aberrant albinos will look stunning as well.
How about you guys??
Thanks for looking,
John Lassiter

I like Lemke stock. i have 4 Lemke snakes or more that i don't know about.
About your gorgeous ruthveni where's the red on the head?
here's mine

Actually Jetzen most Ruthveni have a solid black Zonata head color.

My wild type has only one or two specks of red. I think the mutant striped gene in these attributes to the white mottled nose look.
These even have some light spots in their red around their aberrant banded areas.

Then again, there are always exceptions to the so called "norm."
All snakes are variable in one way or another.....And these Ruthveni are no exception....

John Lassiter

Female Ruthveni
John Lassiter

SHE's a BEAUTY!!!

Thanks John, i'm new to ruthveni so i hope you did'nt mind that question, Now one more if you don't mind, how far separated is ruthveni range from algama range?

The distance in miles is unknown to me unless I look it up real quick, but as far as I know Ruthveni are isolated in certain valleys and mt. ranges in Durango and to the west.....
And NOW here is what you are getting at.....LOL
The closest thing in my opinion that Ruthveni could possibly intergrade with is Arcifera (Jalisco milksnakes). I have seen some specimens in pictures of Arcifera from the eastern portion of their so called range and they DO resemble Ruthveni......
I got some buds of mine down there in that particular area of Mexico as I type doing studies on them......
I hope they share with me what they find...
John Lassiter

Interesting, now one more question,lol,and that's it ! What do you think of the idea of alterna actualy being a mexicana sub.

Some people are going to argue with me on this, but I am old school and still think the L. m. mexicana complex consists of:
Mexmex (San Luis Potosi kings)
Greeri (Durango Mt. kings)
Thayeri (Nuevo Leon kings)
Ruthveni (Queretaro kings)
Alterna (Grey banded kings)

At one time nearly all of these were grouped into the common name of grey banded kingsnakes........That later changed along with a lot more......

Ruthveni were once grouped with triangulum then later placed in the mexicana complex, but as of late it was removed and is named simply Lampropeltis Ruthveni.
Alterna were once believed to be two separate species Alterna and Blairi....Until a wild caught gravid female produced both in one clutch...The story is similar with thayeri (leonis and milksnake phase). Thus named simply Thayeri or Alterna.

The alterna head shape and neck thickness is definitely more defined than all other mexicana, but I still think if we separate every snake into its own subspecies then every breeding we do, unless they were collected on the same damn road cut would be considered a horrible hybrid.
I also think that in some places in isolated areas in Mexico these Mexican snakes intergrade. Take the new Webbi for example....It's DNA makeup falls in between Mexmex and pyro and it looks it too.
Some Mexmex in the southern range and Jalpan area have a "milksnake" look to them....This is due (in my opinion) to influence from Ruthveni.......
There is much more still to be found in Mexico....I just wish their laws weren't as strict......The only one I know of that can legally bring back specimens from Mexico is Alan Kardon from the San Antonio Zoo.......Rob Bryson, Robert Hansen and others are down there now, but they cannot bring a dead or live specimen across the border....only tissue samples and blood for DNA studies.......

More to come I hope,
John Lassiter

Thanks, i agree about alterna being mexicana i was skeptical about ruthveni but now i don't know except the possibility is out there, that's all for now, thanks again

I would also agree that alterna still belong in the mexicana group. I believe that the reasons they were seperated from Mexicana were 1) Iris Color (alterna have silver/grey irises) 2) Vertebrae shape 3) External morphology (ventral counts among other stuff) 4) the fact that they hadn't significantly interbred with the other Mexicana ssp. due to being seperated from them by the Anticline of Arteaga.

There was a great thread on the taxonomy forum awhile back on this one.
(you think there are big arguments on this forum, check that one out!)

Greg

Thanks Greg, and what exactly is the "anticline of arteaga"

I believe the Anticline of Arteaga is a geological feature that seperates the lower Chihuahuan Desert ,where alterna live, from the higher mesas and mountains where mexicana are found.

Greg

.

Mexicana types have short copulation times, avg. 10 to 17 minutes. Milksnakes, 30 to 45 minutes, getulus, 1 hour to 3 hours.

Ruthvens are like mexicana in this fashion. Also, mexicana are polymorphic in all their populations(hugely variable)In nature, Ruthvens are variable. milksnakes do vary not nearly as much.

The problem appears to be with Ruthvens in captivity, It seems no one thought the individuals with narrow red and wide ugly grey, were nice enough to bring into captivity. FR

FR,
Have you noticed that the males' light colored bands stay cleaner and the females' speckle out grey most of the time?
Just an observation I have discussed with Robert Hansen on numerous occasions.....

And if Ruthveni are mostly like Mexicana why have they been taken out of the subspecies and placed in their own????
John Lassiter

Every year, they graduate many many taxo boys, and rarely do they make new species, so they got to do something I suppose. So, forth and back go the names, but the snakes stay the same.

You should really understand, what we call them is all about us, and no so much about them.

I once went to a talk, a ethnogist(sp, behavior) He said, species, subspecies, names, are all meaningless, all animals are not something, they are always on the way to be something. That is important. FR

I agree!!!!
Justification of career choice.......LOL
I know not all are like this just screwing around ya know.....
John Lassiter

That would be greeri, Ruthvens are found strait north of mexico city. In Querretero. They do not intergrade with milksnakes or zonatas. I was fortunate enough to find the fifth thru the 30 something, ones ever found.

In nature they are variable much like any kingsnake, appearing very greeri like to very milksnake like. But their giveaway is their blocky built. Cheers FR

Were the ruthveni you found in Amaelco? Are you familiar with the snakes the Barkers used to have from Jalpan? Dave told me he thought they might be mex mex with ruthveni influence. Any opinions on that?

Those are the exact ones I am referring to Aaron.....The Mexmex from Jalpan that look "milksnake" in appearance....
John

Daves came from Dalles zoo. There were others being bred at LA zoo. they were different snakes altogether.

When he said that, he said what they appeared to look like. Not what they are.

These snakes are all over mexico, and again, their kingsnakes, Kingsnakes are great at adapting to a region(local type). Because one appears like another, does not make it closely related to the other. When this stuff comes up in conversation, Its not meant to be taken literally. For instance, I caught a totally black and white pyro, it appeared like a central Cal zonata. But it isn't, it just looks like one.

When we start guessing about their relationships by color, we are in a world of hurt. Heck in zacatecas, I went to a local where the mexicana appeared like pyro alterna crosses, I mean exactly.

I found them on three sides of amelco all the way down the hill to the dam. Forgive me butchering the names, hahahahaha FR

Frank,
What do you think these Mexicana I got are?
I have a long story that goes along with them....We discussed them over on the Mexicana subforum once or twice.
I just want your opinion....
Thanks,
John Lassiter

They look like Pyro/greeri or pyro/alterna crosses.

But then HKM recently told me they are discribing a new kingsnake, and intermeiate between greeri and pyro. Could it be one of those?

Years ago, tanzer collected one, and I saw it. As I said before, it looked like a pyro cross.

I keep bringing up pyro crosses, because in the old days I did a lot of that and the results appeared like your animals. FR

The new Lampropeltis has been described as Lampropeltis webbi.
It certainly does look like a pyro / Mexicana cross. Bryson has a paper out on his studies and finds.

These two pictured above were purchased from an ex Houston Zoo employee that said they come from many years of line breeding Greeri collected by Louis Porras. There are many other names in their story I am sure you recognize and/or know, but I am not going to get into it all. I thought possibly these were descendants from snakes collected in the same are that Rob Bryson found his newly named webbi, but the webbi has a grey background not cream.

For now I am still calling them possible Greeri crosses......
Thanks for your input.
John Lassiter

There are indeed "other" possibilities. At one time, a long long time ago, I was crossing all the montane kings in some sick experiment. Others I knew, choose to breed absolutely strait. Then I made a silly statement, I said, any type of montane king can produce the color and pattern of any other type of montane king, if inbred long enough. Of course I got all sorts of flack. What I was saying is, genetics is history, and history is stored as layers of genes. They only express current genes, co-dominates and such, but store, recessives and other non-understood genetics.

Well one of the fellas, lets call him Steve. was breeding greeri absolutely true. Then one day a doggone tharyi hatched right out of his greeri eggs. What the heck! The neat part was, Steve indeed called me to tell me of such an event. But he hung up before I could say, I told you so. hahahahahahahahahaha.

So, you could have an inbreeding event, or a crossing event. Either are possible. FR

Nice looking snake John. One question though...In the Markel Kingsnake book he notes that Ruthvens have a green tint around certain triads. si this true ? Do you see it in any of your animals ? I hate to use Markel as a source of info as his books suck big time lol but Im just curious.

Keith
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I love them! Ruth's are great snakes. Sounds like you'll be making some awesome babies.

Keith,
Many yellowish colors on Mexicana speckle out with grey or tiny black speckles as they mature. The illusion, if you will, one may see when looking at some Mexicana is that "green" tint which is actually the yellow and grey making a greenish tinge....
Yellow thayeri sometimes speckle out into adulthood and look greenish as well. Also, some of the light spots on Greeri look green......Also....as in all kingsnakes...they are variable and some do not show this green hue.....
John Lassiter