Reptile & Amphibian Forums

With the recent flood of posts regarding Emoryi and the Great Plains rats, I'm hoping someone can help me out...

Does anyone here work the Intermontana Emoryi??
Some photos would be great!

Thanks much.

byron.d

I literaly lucked into one. My local petshop got a netonate in as a Baird's Rat. I spent the better part of a year trying to explain to them what it wasn't till one day it hit me that it also wasn't your typical emory. That's when it went home.

I have had it for over a year now and it is a strapping 25" male feeding voraciously on rat pups.

I have photographed it but I have never been able to get a handle on posting, so if you contact me I will email the shot.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Frank, that's a nice looking snake. Love the pattern.

TC

Thanks for posting that for me Terry, the snake was very young in that shot. I will be taking new photos today and will send you some.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

>>Thanks for posting that for me Terry, the snake was very young in that shot. I will be taking new photos today and will send you some.
>>
>>Frank

Here's Frank's updated pic of his intermontana...

Frank, that's a great looking snake. It seems to be lots thinner than my "Western" Emory's rats, but I love the pattern and the colors are good too. What plans do you have for that one? Where did you say you got it at?

TC

Terry,

The picture actually makes it look thinner than it is. It does however, have a surprisingly larger head than most emory's I've seen.

Right now I am just raising it. Eventually if I locate another intermontana of the right sex I will breed it. IMO its not a common enough form to waste it on hybridizing.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

>>Terry,
>>
>>The picture actually makes it look thinner than it is. It does however, have a surprisingly larger head than most emory's I've seen.
>>
>>Right now I am just raising it. Eventually if I locate another intermontana of the right sex I will breed it. IMO its not a common enough form to waste it on hybridizing.
>>
>>Frank
>>-----

Frank, you're right, it's not a common snake. I hope more people try to preserve their genes. I don't think crossing them is bad, however, if you're into that. I'm thinking of breeding my silver female and male emoryi this year, and maintaining that line, then maybe crossing the female with a Miami corn in 2007. I guess I'm trying to make a generic snake that has all the good qualities of several subspecies (of guttatus).

Anyway, I think your snake has a lot of good qualities going for it...good bloodline. Do you think it's CB or W/C? Maybe we can trade some babies someday...heheh.

Later...TC

Terry,

As the man I purchased it from (who specialises in oddities) could not ID it I think this is likey a wild caught.

Trading babies later on could definitly be cool.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

but I believe he sold most of his emoryi collection. He would be a good person to contact.
I live in Utah now for school, and they're on my gotta find list. Very pretty variation.

Dusty R.
Simply Subocs

but he did get rid of his. i hit him up last week and got the same info.

a pair of these is very near the top of my '06 want list...

byron.

>>but I believe he sold most of his emoryi collection. He would be a good person to contact.
>> I live in Utah now for school, and they're on my gotta find list. Very pretty variation.
>>
>>Dusty R.
>>Simply Subocs

I remember talking to Don about these several years ago when I bought part of his Great Plains ratsnake collection, Brazos Island rats and other meahllmorum. Part of the problem with the "intermontana", though, is that they are protected in Utah and Colorado and can't be collected. I don't think they can be legally kept in those states either.

Actually, the UT and CO rats aren't classified as a separate subspecies anymore. They are just Pantherophis (Elaphe) guttatus emoryi. Also, it's possible that emoryi can look like "intermontana" in other parts of its range, especially in other western parts of its range, as they tend to be shorter and stockier and vary in color/pattern.

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Ratsnake Haven...researching ratsnakes since 1988

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

>>Actually, the UT and CO rats aren't classified as a separate subspecies anymore. They are just Pantherophis (Elaphe) guttatus emoryi. Also, it's possible that emoryi can look like "intermontana" in other parts of its range, especially in other western parts of its range, as they tend to be shorter and stockier and vary in color/pattern.
>>

These emoryi come from a New Mexico herper, from many years ago and before the new laws, and I'm not sure of their origin. They look like the "intermontana" locality snakes, but they also could have come from eastern CO, N.M., or w. TX, imo. They tend to be short and stocky as adults and lean towards a silverish color, with reduced patterning, so I call them, silver emoryi. I'd like to see a nice, silver colored emoryi someday. Here's a shot of the male which has a somewhat brownish/gray ground color...

The female is much more robust and closer to the silver color I'm looking for...

Although I've never bred them before, I'm thinking of breeding them to my silver Miami corns to get a silver cross, as well as to each other, eventually.

These Miami phase corns are just a color phase and not a true locality, but they tend towards a much shorter corn snake also, like the true Miami locality. They are also a thin snake with some Keys ratsnake blood in them. I'd like to see what a cross bt the two subspecies would look like. The Miamis are also hypo or het. hypo and the cross would be rootbeers (het hypo). Here's one of my silver Miami corns...

I'd like to see others try to come up with an Emory's ratsnake that has some unique coloration and maybe size differences also. Good luck.

TC

Hey Terry, I may be breeding a male candycane corn with my young adult western Nueces County meahllmorum female this year or the next. Should be interesting offspring. - Toby

I've bred a meahllmorum with a corn before and the offspring are nice and very hardy. Will your offspring be het for hypo?

TC

Yes, from what I understand of genetics, all offspring will be heterozygous. The father is amelanistic and the mother is normal. I think this would make all offspring hypomelanistic, but I'm not very educated in genetics. Need some studying! - Toby

Meant to say het for amelanism... Let me know if I am wrong.- Toby

>>Meant to say het for amelanism... Let me know if I am wrong.- Toby

Yes, they will all be het. for amelanism, but they will all look normal. Let me know when you get some eggs, I might be your first customer.

Terry

I will let you know about those eggs, Terry. I got the het for amel right, but off the mark on hypo! Told you I need some studying! - Toby

>>I will let you know about those eggs, Terry. I got the het for amel right, but off the mark on hypo! Told you I need some studying! - Toby

Me too! I forgot that your corn was amel. I have a nice amel. corn too, but can't decide yet which to pair it with, the emoryi or meahllmorum. I'll let you know later. Good luck with your pairing and I'll talk to you more about that later.

Have a great week....Terry

thanks for the info and posting the photos.

byron.d

>>thanks for the info and posting the photos.
>>
>>byron.d

You're welcome! I guess this strand has spurred me into thinking about this snake a lot more. I really like this female. Besides being a nice, silverish color, she's the perfect size for my project, thick and 36", or less. She's also got a super great temperment and is hardy and eats very well, ever since she was a baby. We know emoryi babies are chunkier and eat more readily than corn babies. That's one reason for the project.

I can't wait to pair her up with my nice Miami (Huddleston-below), probably 2007. The only possible drawback I see is that the pattern is somewhat faded in the western emoryis. I'm hoping the Miami cross will help bring the pattern out and will keep a silverish ground color. The babies should be a good size and a good number, maybe 9 or 10, and quite hardy. The perfect pet, haha...

TC

It's been done! If you do it, let me know I would be interested in the offspring.

>>It's been done! If you do it, let me know I would be interested in the offspring.
>>

Is that a Plains rat x corn snake cross? It looks a little like this (het hypo) meahllmorum x guttatus cross...

It is a great plains rat crossed to a Miami Corn.

>>It is a great plains rat crossed to a Miami Corn.

That's a beautiful animal. I love the pattern. I think I'll have to wait until 2007 to cross mine, though, 'cus the Miamis aren't ready, yet. Did you get more than one of those crosses?

TC

I will be doing work for Dr. Jack Sites this semester at BYU in Provo, Utah. Mostly in phylogenetics and DNA sequencing.
He is the herpetologist on campus, and he is also curator and collection manager of the herp collection of the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum here in Provo.
He is also in charge of georeferencing (using GIS and other tools) and documenting all of the known exact longitudes and latitudes of all populations of all the herpetofauna for the State of Utah.
I'll try to find out if he has covered the intermontana variety of emoryi yet.
Also, I would bet he has whatever permits required to collect them and study them.
He wants me to eventually rotate to doing field work for him somewhere over the course of the next 2 years. I'd sure like to study emoryi, even if I can't keep them. That would surely be cool.
In fact, if I got to see snakes as often I wanted to in THEIR own natural environment, I doubt I would keep that many in captivity, if at all.
In a way, I felt I have needed to "bring the nature to me" growing up. Hopefully life will allow me to bring myself to nature more often.

Dusty Rhoads
Simply Subocs

Dusty, that sounds like a great opportunity. I hope that works out for you and you can post some of your findings and pics on this forum. I know that Universities often have permits to study the animals in the field, which is something I like to do too. One snake we study here in MI is the Eastern massasauga. I can't and don't want to keep one, but I can see them in their habitat. I also work with several college students who work on field studies where they tag the snakes and collect data.

Three more semesters and I'm retiring from teaching myself and plan to move to AZ. I'm hoping to spend a lot of time on field studies, which is one reason I'm reducing my collection to a few species now.

Good luck with your studies. Emoryi lives in some awesome habitat in Utah, as I'm sure you know.

TC

I was looking at Don's site, and under his emoryi photo gallery he still has his intermontana pictured, as well as South Texas Emoryi. Not sure what locality he's working with now. I do know he has some Oklahoma emoryi, because I purchased one from him over a month ago.

Steve

Could someone supply me with a link to Don's site. i'd love to look.

Thanks, Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Just click on Emory's folder over to the left.

Steve
Link

Cool site!

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I've been breeding locale intermontana for some time now, check out the link.
Scott John Reptiles