Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is there anyone working with/on pattern or color morphs of these guys other than amelanistic or melanistic (Great Plains)? I saw pics of a striped Southern Plains a while back. Is this a heritable trait as in Corns? I'd like to see pics of anything interesting.

Here's a horrible photo of my favorite yearling Southern Plains. She was the runt of a set of twins, now one of the biggest from that clutch. She has long dorsal saddles which have a slight greenish tinge to them.

Sorry, the picture didn't make it on.

Hey, that's a nice lookin' snake. I like the light colored Southern Great Plains ratsnakes, Pantherophis guttatus meahllmorum. I have a couple from Brazos Island...

I also have a reversed-striped speciman from the Freer area in s. TX....

I think these are supposed to breed pretty true, but this is the only one I have.

Besides the albino, and chocolate, there's also a hypo morph out there of the Great Plains ratsnake (emoryi), but as you can see I'm mostly interested in the southern form, especially from along the TX/Mex border. The West TX intergrade form is pretty interesting too. I plan to get morphs eventually, but I'm crossing the Great Plains ratsnakes with my favorite corns to get them. I'm working with albino and hypo genes. Here's a cross bt. a hypo corn and SGP rat...

If any other SGP rats show up or any morphs from s. TX, let me know. I definitely want to work with this form long term.

TC

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Ratsnake Haven...researching ratsnakes since 1988

Ratsnake Haven Group...an information providing list site.

Thanks for the compliment. I am looking forward to breeding that one in a couple years. I have a small colony of Southern Plains, all from Nueces County, TX. I have bred 2 of them for the last couple of years and have found them very easy to breed; my founding female has not layed a bad egg yet! These are great snakes; easy going, easy to feed and the specimens in this area get pretty big also. I have three large ltc adults that are well over 4 feet long, the biggest male is probably close to 5 feet now.

I really like that striped animal! If I come across any with stripes or other abherrant patterns I will let you know, but I will probably be keeping it for myself

Here's a couple pics of my founding 1.1, female then the male.

- Toby

Just curious since you were talking about the size of your Plains Rats. Do adult corns and Plains rats average out to around the same size? I know some locals are larger then others. Do Great Plains Rats have more girth then corns? I know Plains Rats as babies are huge compared to your typical corn, but didn't know if that reflected into adulthood. They are beautiful Toby.

Steve

I think, in general, corns ave. larger than Great Plains rats, but it depends on the locale. There are small corns too. Toby is in an interesting area which seems to be favorable for larger growth and somewhat close to the P. g. slowinskii range.

GP rats tend to get shorter and a little thicker as you move west. The intermontane rats are very short and thick. One reason I like the crosses bt. corns and GP rats is that they are larger babies than corns and hardier snakes in some ways. Remember you get smaller clutches too.

Good question....TC

I think Terry answered that pretty well, Steve. Thanks for the compliment on the snakes also. I love these snakes; not bright colored, but very interesting patterns and habits and easy to keep.
- Toby

You're welcome.

Toby, do you know John Lassiter? He and a couple others I know are working with Nueces Co, and other rats from the coast too. I think they may be, or are close to being, intergrades with "slowinskii" (the reason I consider them all subspecies). That could help explain the large size and large blotches.

I like your animals too. They are very pretty. I like the temperments of the Southern Plains rats..very easy going. Mine are smaller than yours, however. But they are only two yr. olds too. Glad you're having luck with them and keep us posted.

There were some folks working with the reverse-striped form. The guy I got mine from sold his stock to KJ, I believe, but I don't think KJ has them anymore. I plan to look for them when I get the chance to go to s. TX in the future. The snakes from that area can be very light and have lots of other neat characters. I also think it should be a different ssps from emoryi.

Good luck....Terry

Terry, I don't personally know John lassiter, but I know someone who does who said he thought John might have gotten out of the Southern Plains. I agree with you about the possibility of slowinskii genes in these snakes. These seem to average at least a little over 4 feet long from the number of adults I have seen wild here. I am also very fortunate to live across the road from a ranch which abounds with snakes of all kinds. ... toby

Hi, Toby.

John was the reason I commented about your area. He's from Corpus Christi. I've seen some of his that look like intergrades and some that look like my Brazos Island stock. I think the BI snakes get pretty big, but the r/s one is growing very slowly. The counties north of you along the coast probably have even better chance of intergrades. I'm very interested in what's coming out of that area. Keep me posted. I'd like to see pix of the babies you get too, if possible.

Currently, I'm trying to decide if the snakes from south of San Antone can brumate. Conditions in my herp room aren't that great for staying active Dec-Feb, so I'd brumate them if I could. I don't like the under cage heaters that much. Snakes seem to go off feed anyway. Do you do any brumating? Thanks for the post...

TC

Terry, Yes, I brumate my SGP's outdoors from about the second week of December to 2nd week of February, all of them, adults and babies and they come through great. I built an insulated outdoor brumation "coop" for them this year. The winters here are extremely variable on temps, they fluctuate from the low 80's to the low 30's, sometimes in the same week. I bring them into the house and put them in a cool closet when temps get down to the 30's. The Brazos Island area is about 160 miles south of here and I think temps average a little warmer there. Since you are so far north, I would be careful about cooling them, but if you can maintain temps between 50f and 65f, I think they should be okay.
I have heard that emoryi clutches are small, usually 5 or 6 eggs, but my female meahllmorum layed 11 eggs in '04 and 14 eggs this year. Could this be another indication that these are intergrades with slowinskii?
Here's a pic of one the'05's almost fresh from the egg in post-hatching shed. I will get some better pics of them on soon.
- Toby

Toby, great post. I figured the meahllmorum would be partially active in s. TX in winter. I may cool them around 60* for a few weeks and see how they do, then maybe go for a month or two. The BI rats are doing great, so far. Good luck with yours this winter and keep us posted

The clutch info is very valuable. Thanks for the pics too. Those are nice looking babies and look a lot like the adults. I did a cross bt. an adult, male, BI rat and a hypo corn. The results were interesting with about a dozen eggs. I only have one baby from that first clutch still, and it's a subadult female.

I think many of the Great Plains rats do have small clutches and yours are having an inbetween size. (I'm not sure what the size ave. is for the BI rats.) This is an indicator of intergradation, imo, and is good info that most others have not reported on much. Not many folks think there is intergradation between meahllmorum and slowinskii. Heck, they aren't sure whether slowinskii is guttatus or it's own species. We're still waiting for some people to publish on this. Keep up the good work on that.

Thanks for the report. Later....TC

I think I may have to get a pair of pure locality slowinskiis now!

A slightly more recent photo of one of 11.3 babies.

Nice pic. Very pretty baby.

TC