Craig,
you are correct in maintaining that these animals can be found in the lower elevations you mentioned. But with that said, please understand that in our and several other sucessfull keepers experience these animals will live for quite sometime kept at normal temps. ( 78 - 82 F.). But over a period of time the feeding response declines, regurge problems start to show up and a general decline ending in death happens many times. That is not to say there are not exceptions, I know a few keepers that have been sucessful with Non-Limburg lines at higher temps. The majority of the highly colored animals in the hobby though seem to have come from the higher elevations of the range.
And so with the majority of them, with lower temps being provided, reduced feeding routines and a few other minor husbandry adjustments they do just fine, reproduce and are viable captives. I understand what you are saying and it is correct, but I would hate to have anyone lose animals from making a false assumption as to husbandry needs.
One thing you might look at also in your research is the difference in the scalation and coloration of the animals collected in the lower elevatons and the ones collected around the Durango, Mexico area and other mountainous areas. It seems as if there is a distinct difference in the different locales, I personally don't think there is enough difference to constitute a different sub-species connotation. But I will leave that up to the taxonomists LOl.
John Cherry
Cherryville Farms
PS someone emailed and wanted to know why so few were brought into the country back when Mexico collecting was allowed. Look at the unappealing pics of neonates below and you will see why permit space was rarely used on these ugly ducklings.
