Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here are some nice mexmex I picked up from Mark Kenderdine (crimsonking)over the last two years.......
Here are the females.....

And a couple of real nice looking males....

I hope a couple of them will be ready to go in 2007.
John Lassiter

Mark produces some interesting mex mex and I like your taste in the split-saddled examples John, particularly the raised saddled ones with side speckling... great looking young mex mex. These are all looking very nice. My fav's from this group are the third female and the first male below her, they both have great looking split saddles. You should be producing some really nice babies very soon and I hope next year goes well.

Mike

Mark does produce some nice snakes.....Your taste is similar to mine....I like the male and female you selected, but watch out for that little male with the busy pattern, he will be an impressive adult.

You can see a dimorphic difference between the males and the females even in my small group.......I think the males are much nicer, cleaner and redder. Kinda like most male ruthveni are not as laterally speckled as the females.

Maybe if I keep pairing these splitbanded mexmex I can eventually produce some of those speckled mexmex I want so bad, but could not afford this year.....

I hear rumor there are some cream/white ones out there as well. Gonna have to find a pair for the future.

Mike.....do you have a breeding pair of Mexmex for next Spring?
and...How many thayeri females do you plan on breeding?

John Lassiter

John, great looking mex mex pics. You really did turn me onto just how aesthically pleasing the splitband (or keyholed saddles) is in mexicana spp. I want to get a female splitband for my classic male mex mex. It's just bad we have wait until '07 for those babies. John, can you tell me where I can see a picture of a speckled mex mex.
Happy Herping,
Uncloudy

When I get home I will dig up some pics of the speckled Mexmex and email them to you.....They are amazingly beautiful in my opinion.....They vary in the amount of speckling....

Aaron Mattson may have some pics of his or others to share if he reads this post....

I believe they were produced by some Europeans (Germans?). I know Don Soderberg picked his up years ago in West Texas from them while alterna hunting....Don Shores bred them this year and had some OK luck with them.....I don't think the trait has been proven to be a single recessive gene rather something similar to the splitbands......That is why I think they can be produced from line breeding the splitbanded mexmex I have in my collection.......

John Lassiter

Maybe if I keep pairing these splitbanded mexmex I can eventually produce some of those speckled mexmex I want so bad.....

No doubt that can easily happen with the great animals you have to work with and I know you are seeing what I am... looking at all the specimens we have photos of from the speckled bloodline, it's easy to see that those raised split saddles eventually begin breaking up to produce that overall speckled pattern. The babies I added to my group this year that are from bloodlines other than the Shores/Soderberg speckled trio, all have the raised saddles with the pronounced side speckling. I bought these specifically to be worked into the speckled project for diversity. These speckled mex mex really are spectacular when they are right in front of you, photos do them no justice whatsoever. You mention the cream/white ground colored ones... I know you've seen that some of the speckled examples are very light in ground color, get your hands on a few of those cream/white animals you talk about, toss them into the speckled mix and wow! What an awesome mexicana that would be!

I have one pair of l.m.mexicana that are '03's and nearly ready, the split saddled male could father young easily however I am giving the female another year to mature before putting her to work.

Thayeri... I have two proven females, one proven male and numerous '03's that could easily produce young next year. I may use one or two of the '03 males but these young '03 females will also have to wait one more year. This place should be crawling with thayeri babies in 2007.

Thanks for showing your mex mex here again John, you have a terrific collection. I'll have to find time to photo all of mine soon.

Mike

So, what bloodline is your mexmex then? Is it from the Galvan's/Mattson's Mexmex? If so, I think the Galvan's got them from the European breeder I was referring to earlier......
That is why I want to produce my own some day......It would be my own strain (by way of crimsonking).....LOL
John Lassiter

The speckled trio were produced by Don Shores this year. The other six '05's are from various sources and these six are all raised-saddled, laterally speckled models.

I would love to see someone like you develop an entirely separate strain of speckled mexicana right here in the good 'ol USA and with some of the great looking and light colored animals that you have over there, your's would be exceptional John.

Mike

...cleaning just now, I snapped this pic of a future breeder

(hopefully)
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

Sure glad to see you noticed the mex mex chat over here Mark and came out to play. John has told me about your mex mex and shared pics of some babies you've produced. This is the place to strut your stuff... while you have everyone's attention and if you can find the time, give us all a mexicana photo extravaganza!

Mike

Oh my Mark....So that is the male I didn't get to 'snake' from you??.....
Great smoked grey and split saddles........Will he breed this coming Spring? It is a male right?
John Lassiter

...here's the one above's parents:

I love the scale pics

mom:

face:

Well, this girl was cooperative..so...

:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

Great looking mex mex you've got there!
Very nice!
Uncloudy

Nice fleet there, John, with wonderful variety. Anybody else working with Black Phase animals? Here is an 04 male produced by Ric Blair.

Bob

Bob,
I would bet money that that one will darken to almost black in a year or so.......I wonder though if the saddles will turn orange like alot of black phase mexmex......
Nice one BTW, and thank you for the compliments Bob....
John Lassiter

A black or dark phase mex mex that would keep the bright orange or burgandy saddles would be very spectacular.
Does anyone have any pics of the dark phase mex mex's with bright/light saddles on the dark body?
Thanks for the pics,
Uncloudy

Does this one qualify as a black phase? She's an 04 and although is rather average looking, she does have burgandy saddles on a dark charcoal grey background.

Maria

Awesome Mexmex Maria,
I think she is rather nice and more than 'average'. Most females do not look that nice...IMHO.
Not quite a dark/black phase, but she may darken with age....
My males are the lookers in my group....My females are nice, but not as clean as the males. I selected the females for splitbanded patterns.......
Here is my pair of dark phase Mexmex(Lloyd Lemke male and a female from Mark Kenderdine).

Ric's look nicer IMHO, but I wanna see what these produce.
John Lassiter

...after years of trying to get the lightest ones I could, you make me want to get some more dark black ones! Thanks a lot.
I sold a whole clutch of neos (and most were very dark already with dark red/orange saddles) to a guy from Germany back in '00.[kicks self]
He got some killer scarlet kings too.
Geeze.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

John:

Those are terrific looking snakes. That male is seriously black--really neat. Do you happen to know the origin of these black phase? Did they show up in captive bred animals, or were these part of the mix of wild-caught stuff? Of the six adults we found in the field this summer, one approached the very dark look.

Bob

I believe Lloyd Lemke produced the first dark phase from his wild collected mexmex. I am not 100% sure though.
I always wondered where Kim got her dark ones from. They were the best....black and orange.......
John

I believe Kim's black phase are the ones that went to Ric Blair, correct? I think Ric told me that Kim said she originally got them from Paul Lynum and Matt Smith of the former High Mountain Reptiles. If that's true I talked to Paul once and he said the black phase just came unexpectedly from some generic mex mex they had and they bred true. There was no locality on them.

Kim's black phase did not go directly to Ric Blair......Ric got them from the person who bought them from Kim. I believe. Ric told me he did not buy them directly from Kim. It may have been Matt Smith who got them from Kim or back from Kim???????? I do not think they had locality information either...

I don't have any locality information on my pair of dark phase either, but the male was produced from Lloyd Lemke's line of Mexmex as it was told to me.......My dark female is from Mark Kenderdine.....I wonder still where he got her from??????
I will have to email him and ask???

John Lassiter

Aaron & John:

To my knowledge, virtually all of the U.S. stock of mexicana derives from the same general area in SLP, the Valle de los Fantasmas, and there is a fair bit of pattern variation among snakes from there based on pics I've seen and conversations with early collectors. I have yet to talk to anyone who knows otherwise.

Bob

Yes, many years ago I did once ask Lloyd Lemke if he had any wild caught mex mex. He said some of his were and that they came from Valle De Las Fantasmas. But he did not say all of his were wild caught so it's possible he was mixing them with other captive born stock.
I hate to assign a locality to any snakes where the complete history is not known because unknown and known hybrids or crosses can knowingly or unknowingly be introduced into such lines. There are many phenotypically "pure" generic mex mex out there and that will have to do as the true history on most has been lost it seems.
Bob you may or may not know this but Dave and Tracey Barker used to sell some Jalpan locality "mex mex". I have only seen one but it was quite different from the typical Valle De Las Fantasmas specimens. I spoke to Dave several years ago about the Jalpans. At that time he still had a 2.1 trio of them he had collected himself. He had 2.2 pure Jalpan babies available but unfortunately I passed and got some Carpet Pythons instead. Also at that time on his list he was selling mex mex with "Jalpan influence" so presumably he was crossing the Jalpans with generic or Fantasmas mex mex. Now my question is will new research end up calling the Jalpans mex mex or will they be called something else? That's a rehtorical question but I think it illustrates the value of locality data and why we should only call something locale if we have the complete history.
Although I don't know of any other specific locals it is not hard for me to imagine a few were colleted off the road incidentally on the way to or from the known localities and just mixed in with whatever they looked closest too.

Aaron,
These "Jalpan" Mexmex have more of a 'milksnake' look to them, correct? I once heard it was Ruthveni influence, but I really don't know if the range of Ruthveni extends out of Queretaro...
Does it?
John Lassiter

John:

Ruthveni ranges from eastern Queretaro (and maybe even into Hidalgo) and westward to Michoacan and Jalisco. There will soon be a report published that extends the range elsewhere, but I won't steal their thunder.

Bob

Here is a link to the Jalpan picture from The Mountain Kingsnake Page here at kingsnake.com. The snake is wc by Dave Barker 1981.

n/p
Jalpan

OK that link does not take you to the pic directly. To see the pic you then have to click on "distribution" then click on "Mexico" and there is a few wc snakes you can view, including a Fantasmas specimen and the Jalpan specimen among others.
Jalpan

...for the compliment on my mex mex. I too hope she darkens up. Now that I see what your dark phase looks like, I know what I want next :^)

Thanks,
Maria

You are certainly welcome Maria...
I hope to produce some nice Mexmex in the Summer...maybe some dark/black phase if I am lucky...
John Lassiter

Here is a link to Ric Blair's black phase breeder pics:

http://www.ricblairreptiles.com/POTOSI KING BREEDERS.htm

Bob