Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Frank below in your post about hybrids you ignore the first two post trying to convey information and instead go for the one that offends you. WHy??? Why skip the first two that may have info to be gained??? Why is that the pattern you follow.

I, like most on here think you have so very much to offer but it is so often lost by this pattern of yours. I think the queastion was interesting that you asked so I am going to bring it up again.

Think about what I asked here though. I am not trying to anger you I am just trying a differant angle. Also if you take this the wrong way I am not going to carry on a long thread of calling each other names. I am really truely trying to start a differant way of doing things here with you.

Thanks Jason

Many years ago, I bred beardies, then I moved on to monitors. I started with the smaller types, then it dawned on me. I could cross a bearded to a Spinytailed monitor. So I did, here it is. Enjoy FR

Good one Frank, this place could use a little levity now and then.
BTW, I just hatched out 9 striped phase Cal kings, very handsome little guys...I can see how you get "hooked", it is very exciting to see what will come out next (I feel the same way when fishing in deep water, you never know what will come up next...). One has a complete stripe, no breaks, and one has a black ventral, one has an aberrant zig-zag pattern, the others typical Scissors Xing stripes. How common is the complete stripe, Cal king breeders?

First, I do not respond to you, other then with funny stuff(funny to some people)(its fine if only one laughs)(one is better then now)(even if thats me)

The other first, you posts seem to be like this, you you you you you you. If you(hahahahahaha) said, the snakes, the snakes, the snakes. I may take you serious( i don't) You like some many care more about people then the animals. Why do you, why do you, on and on. I do not care so much for people, I hope you get that. They seem to more then kill snakes, they kill their homes.

Now about two fathers for one clutch. I explained, if you bothered to read, that I knew of it happening. I also explained how I thought it happened(you must of missed that) Then I asked for more input.

Most of the input was simply stating it happened, I already knew that. If they were to add how it happened, that would add to what was already stated. That failed to happen. My post stated it occured, the question was that and more, HOW?

You then fought like a hungry tomato/e, about what? I could care less. Then you stated you had to male sire a clutch. But they were dudes. Here you express your navity(not a bad thing, simply unaware) In order for it to occurr, to father, means to recieve offspring, as in make babies. To mate/copulate, may be what occurred for you, that is not to father or sire. To mate or copulate is meaningless unless, it results in offspring, neonates, babies, recuritment, etc.

Without babies, you cannot tell who fathered what??????? without babies, there are no fathers.

To take this farther, the deal, the question, is!!!!!!!! Many species of snakes produce a thing, its called a cloacal plug, this plug forms some time after breeding. If you breed your snake, the first breeding will go normal, when the male withdraws, there will be no visable discharge. The discharge, the sperm, will be inside the female, you know, where it will do some good. On the other hand, sometime later, this is the big question, how long later?, when the male withdraws, a ball of sperm will fall to the ground, where its of little good. that is, unless there are some unfertilized frog eggs laying there. Boy would that be cool. Almost as neat as my backie. Or feeding roo's to monitors.

So please, do some research and find out about these cloacal plugs, as this IS surely published, good luck. FR

Frank,
I think I understand the dynamics of how the physical copulation works. The basics at least. My queastion above was not fleshed out and I am going to go above and further flesh it out. I am not going to carry on any meaningful conversation here because I know some people are already skipping this thread because of the bickering that may be going on. That would be my fault for how I started this thread. I made a second thread because of this. You see I have talked to some people off site that have told me that when they see this kind of thing they skip it. Those people are some of the better minds on this forum. Wanting to include them and you I am going up one thread. Hope to see you there.
Later Jason

This is an article in which the authors state that some Garter snakes make cloacal plugs which last 2-4 days and physically prevent other male from mating. One reference quoted states that in a captive population maintained outdoors 50% of females remated and in another population 75% of litters were sired by multiple males.
Here's the article

http://www.uttyler.edu/biology/Ford/003maleredsided.pdf

One reason I brought this up was we(many of us) would see the females expell sperm after the first breedings(no set number) But that was not consistent. heck seeing them breed was not consistent.

I was using this recent event of the possibility of two males fertilizing one clutch as a tool to see if more has been learned in the last couple of decades(since I was out of colubrids). It appears not much as been done or seen. Or at least its not commonplace.

I would guess its something to do with being able to view our captives and much of our current methods prevent that.

For instance, many herpers are surprised to learn that snakes shed their tongues. If you have a glass fronted cage, its very common to see tongue sheds about an inch above the substrate, but not limited to that height.

They also shed their hemipenes. Don't ask how I learned that.

I hope most here already know and have experienced that.

Again back to old experience, As I never had two males sire a clutch before. Let me repeat, it must be the way I approached snake breeding, leaving one male in for an extented period and not rotating males within minites. I also never had sperm from one clutch bleedover and appear in the next clutch, not the same year or overwinter. Mind you, an example would be. I bred an alterna to a pyro the first clutch and all babies were Alterna/pyros, and then the second clutch, I would breed the alterna to a greeri. Which always resulted in Alteran/greeri. The same went for Calkings, I often had a kingsnake morph, that was never bred to another of its own morph. As with the others, each time I bred a female to a different morph, the offspring expressed traits of that breeding. If on the second clutch, I used a different morph, the offspring would express that. Cheers FR

Indigo keepers are well aware of this. You first notice it when you find "worms" in their water bowl and frantically try to identify them.

What a relief to find they are tongue skins...

So indigo keepers know this, are indigos kept in shoe boxes? Please understand, I am not against shoeboxes, I just understand how limiting they are. They are very handy for keeping small snakes, but not very good at allowing you to learn. Which is what I think may be happening. As you see, I get all this flack about common behaviors. But in order to understand behaviors, you have to SEE them. And in certain types of cages, you either cannot SEE them, or there is no room to express them.

Remember, I said I bet most/many do not know about tongue sheds and hemipene sheds. The point of this is, shouldn't everyone know about this. Shouldn't it along with cloacal plugs(sperm expelling in females) be common knowledge.

By the way, not to cause a fight, but indigos surely are the King snake of the U.S. what awsome animals. FR

Indigo keepers tend to be fanatical about housing, so other than juveniles I don't think many are kept in rubbermaids. As you know, they are difficult to breed with regularity. Over on the indigo forum we kick around ideas as to why this is so from time to time. You should stop by and stir up that nest, it would be fun.

And yes, indigos are the King of American snakes. The one pictured ate a 5 1/2' cal king female who "espcaped" into his cage. I love kingsnakes, but indigos are something else.

Cheers,

Mike