Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been looking for years for a variable king with these colors. I have seen many orange ones that are pretty, but they don't look like this. This has more yellow with ultra-thin leonis bands.
I have saved this picture from a 10 year old price list that Allen and Betsy Shelton put out back in '96, because I probably won't ever buy one until I find a thayeri that looks more like this animal.
If you produce babies like this, you will very probably have my business.

Thanks.

Dusty R.

Simply Subocs

Dusty:

That's a pretty amazing-looking snake. I have seen quite a few thayeri but never one with that degree of yellow--almost like a juvenile Green Tree Python! Pardon my skeptical nature, but is it possible that the color is not accurate? It's easy enough, both on the computer and in the printing process, to end up with colors that don't match what the animal really looks like. The "yellow" thayeri that some of us produce are a fairly pale yellow to yellowish-white--nothing like that one. Maybe some of the other folks will chime in.

Happy hunting!

Bob

Bob,

Thanks for the reply.
I assume that it's possible that the color is askew, but the rest of the colors of other herps on that price-list seemed fairly dead on.
But it's not just the color that amazes me. It's the pattern too. It almost looks like an alterna phase gray-band but with awesome yellow instead!...especially with those thin and spread out leonis bands.
I don't think that the yellow color could be that far off from the real thing?? It's quite vibrant from the contrasting gray rocks.
If you find out anything else, let me know.
Dusty
Simply Subocs

Dusty:

There are probably several breeders (including me) working with thin-banded or pinstripe leonis phase thayeri, but the ground colors tend to range from very soft buckskin to olive to brown/gray, as in this young female. I have also seen photos of two very alterna-gray pinstripe thayeri, one of which was wild collected, the other produced by Tim Gebhard.

Cheers,

Bob

Her gorgeous peach blush on the light background is really quite eye-catching. Did you produce that girl?

Mike

Dusty,

Try a fellow in Philly named Mike Bodner, Chris' Colubrids is his website:

http://www.webspawner.com/users/chriscolubrids/index.html

Mike is one heck of a nice guy and his yellow thayeri project is really beginning to come around. Pikiemikie is his username here, and the yellow thayeri photo on the Mexicana Forum home page is one of his males. From what I have seen, he is producing some of the nicest yellow leonis thayeri available and his breeders are some of the absolute best. He produced several last year that are what you are looking for; one nice '05 male of his is living here now.

Mike

Here is the '05 male I bought from Mike, many of his have a much deeper yellow.....

Thanks Mike.....if you scroll down to a thread that says "yellow", you'll see siblings of mike's male above......It is yet to be seen if they hold this color as they grow... This was the first clutch from this pair. Thanks again, mike bodner

Very beautiful snake. I can't wait to get mine in tomorrow from you.

-----
Michelle

Thanks Mike. Here's one of his siblings.

Got it from Rick Millspaugh last fall. It was more white but the yellow seems to be coming on. A really nice little snake. Someday I'll get a pic that will do it justice.

Beautiful snake Mike, I got three from Rick last fall, here is the male.

-----
Michelle

They both still look great. I can see more very light orange coming in on your "yellow" Michelle. I haven't seen him in a while so it is more noticable. Nice picture too. Mike, your picture looks more like mine (lol).
-----
Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles

>>I have been looking for years for a variable king with these colors. I have seen many orange ones that are pretty, but they don't look like this. This has more yellow with ultra-thin leonis bands.
>> I have saved this picture from a 10 year old price list that Allen and Betsy Shelton put out back in '96, because I probably won't ever buy one until I find a thayeri that looks more like this animal.
>>

The first time I had Thayeri, back in the early to mid 90’s, a few “top end” thayeri around looked similar and others had an orange wash too. Now I have never seen that snake it person, but I do NOT believe the picture is 100 percent accurate of the ones I saw at this time. One of the problems encountered (especially by me) when photographing Thayeri is: the colors we see visually are actually a fairly complex mix of colors and cameras do not always capture the mix accurately. I believe what you are seeing is the result of a yellowish (more straw color) wash over an otherwise “buckskin leonis” type thayeri. The gray under the wash gives a chartreuse look. Also, when converting photos to printed brochures the colors are distorted depending on how many colors were used to create the brochure. Modern printing is much more accurate but things like “silk screening” still has the same problem. That is probably the best picture they could get and may very well be completely accurate but I don’t think so.

The pattern is very nice but many breeders produce a few with similar patterns, here’s a female baby I produced this year with similar (not exact) thin banding (the second picture). The other picture is of Michelle’s “yellow” male she got from me as a baby (the first picture). The camera I was using at the time could not capture the complex colors at all and he looks more chartreuse than he really was. He did have a very noticable “florescent” glow though. If the colors on that Thayeri were accurate, I would suspect the gray would become much more pronounced as it grew and the adult version would be nothing like the baby. People like Tim of “Vivid” have worked many generations to “clean-up” the body color (breed out the gray) so the ones you see now, will not look like that because the body colors have less gray. They also retain much of their color as they age.

-----
Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles

Rick, I love that second pic, the rock, the snake, all fantastic.
-----
Michelle

n/p
-----
Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles