Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently e-mailed an advertiser about procuring a male 2005' Nelsoni, and received an interesting response... When I enquired further, and "translated the cryptic abbreviations" asking for a specific photo of the animal in question, none was sent, and no reply was fowarded.

Being that only a few hours transpired from the actual ad to my posting, I feel that I should have at least been given an explanation. Being that the dealer did not understand universally accepted nomenclature hints that they merely purchase animals and transfer them...

Does kingsnake.com differentiate between expert breeders and enthusiasts and 2nd party brokers. Not wanting to cause a flame war, but did expect an informed reply...

Thanks!

P.S. The e-mails exchanged are shown below, without the name of the company involved. Why wouldn'd L.t.n. be identified as Lampropeltis triangulum nelsoni by a competent source of reptiles?

From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 21:09:28 0200
To: drdan@inetmail.it
Subject: Re: 2005' albino L.t.n.

> Not sure of the abbreviations you are referring to. If you can be more
> specific, we could send you photos. We have any to choose from.
>
> Thank you,
> XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From:
> To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
> Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2005 2:02 PM
> Subject: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
>
>
> > Hi!
> >
> > I'm looking either for a PERFECT 1.0 albino 05' L.t.n. or a PERFECT 1.0
> > albino 2004' L.t. sinaloa. If you can help me, kindly send me photos of
> > the actual animals you have for sale meeting my parameters.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Daniel
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------
> > Click on (or cut and paste into you browser's
> > location window) the URL below to view the ad that
> > this message is in response to.
> >
> > XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------
> > This message was sent by the user: Daniele
> >
> > Sent 01:02 PM, Aug 13th, 2005 from I.P. Address XXXXXXX

"Being that the dealer did not understand universally accepted nomenclature hints"

I'm not sure that it is universally accepted to abbreviate every word in the name down to the subspecies level.
If I inquired about L.t.g, am I looking for gaigeae or gentilis? Is L.t.s. referring to syspila or sinaloae?

There are plenty of great breeders that aren't up on their nomenclature. I ignored it for years and only made serious attempts to learn when I started field herping. I'd be more concerned that the breeder I'm buying from knows proper husbandry and how to properly ship without killing my snake in transit.
Chris

Danielle,

There is no such thing as an albino Sinaloan. These are albino intergrades from people who have crossed Nelson's and Sinaloans.

Kingsnake does not differentiate between breeders or brokers...or even wild caught animal dealers. If you're looking to buy reptiles from the person that produced them, you'd have better results visting websites where breeders show their adults and the babies they produced.

Tim

Third Eye

Thanks for the clarifications, guys!

Tim, that albino Sinaloan is spectacular!!!!!!!

................................................................

I'm not discounting the possibility the correspondence might harbor a scam. But i did note an anomalie in a ittle of your shosrthand, notably 05' and 2004' with the single apostrophe or single quote mark after the year, the conventional usage would be '05 and 2004 (no apostrophe). Several other possibilities: it may be a dealer with tens or more diff species available and Ltn didn't ring a bell, though ltsinaloae should have triggered recognition; it may be the .it email suffix indicates an italian location and that could lead to language probs.

btw i recently had an encounter i thought might be a scam--an overseas buyer wanted to purchase about $500 of snakes and when i questioned the practicality of such a small deal considering the considerable export costs, he said he had a company that would pick them up at my door and get them to him. anybody heard of such a service? I haven't, so asked for details to know we could get the job done, before taking his money. he wrote back without the requested info, still wanted to send $, and when i questioned it again he seemed miffed and wrote back he'd never do biz with me. I can't figure out how i'd get scammed taking someone's money, but it just didn't smell right, y'know? Meanwhile, a friend in UK has told me he's had buyers want to send a larger check, with him returning the snakes and a refund for the diff: he said he's heard the buyer's check bounces, leaving the buyer with the snakes AND the refund check.

peace
terry

Hi Terry,

Here is how a scam went with me (not snake related, they were "buying" a volkswagon bug engine): The buyer contacted me. I said that I wasn't interested in shipping an engine overseas. The buyer then said that he'd take care of it. I said "You mean you'll have someone come over, pick it up and take it away?" They said "yes" (via e-mail). The engine was selling for $500. In a week I received a bank check for $4,000. The check was fake (like you, I was once in the publishing business and could tell, it was printed by an injet printer and not a very good fake). The scam was that I was to have the check cashed and send $3,500 to the "buyers" designated shipper, who was not located in America.

So that's how scams work in this part of town. There has been a lot of this going in the Cleveland area. It seems that scammers are finding more things on the internet (where the engine was posted) and using that route - they even pretended to be interested customers, by asking that I send them photos of the engine.

Tim