Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know this has been discussed a few times here, but since then a few folks have been breeding melanistic thayeri and I'd like to know if how many folks produced all melanistic thayeri from a Melanistic X Melanistic pairing...

I know Bob Hansen did.
Bob, if you read this do you know if your melanistic line originated from Lemke, Ruiz or Valverka (sp?).

I know Lance Benton did two years ago...

Who else has?

I have read archived posts and I believe John Cherry was the one who claimed his Melanistic X Melanstic pairings did not produce all melanistic offspring. Has anyone else witnessed this?

I am one to believe that there is a line out there that breeds true and is a recessive gene. I also think that there are visual hets produced when a Melanistic X Normal is paired. Offspring with one melanistic parent tend to have solid black ventrals and thick black borders around their saddles. Does anyone have example pics of thayeri offspring with one melanistic parent?
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

EVERYONE I know that bred melanistic to melanistic produced 100% melanistic, EXCEPT John Cherry.

So who else can we add to John Cherry's list?

Brad A. should have photos of melanistic to a Dan V pairing, and AFAIK none of those were "VISUAL" hets.... I had two of them that did NOT have solid black ventrals, in fact they were almost solid cream in both instances.

IMO it's still possible the gene is a super gene, but I'm not convinced either way, and lean towards recessive.

>>EVERYONE I know that bred melanistic to melanistic produced 100% melanistic, EXCEPT John Cherry.
>>
>>So who else can we add to John Cherry's list?
>>
>>Brad A. should have photos of melanistic to a Dan V pairing, and AFAIK none of those were "VISUAL" hets.... I had two of them that did NOT have solid black ventrals, in fact they were almost solid cream in both instances.
>>
>>IMO it's still possible the gene is a super gene, but I'm not convinced either way, and lean towards recessive.

I am leaning towards recessive too....And John Cherry is the ONLY one I can think of that claims to have not produced all black offspring from a Melanistic X Melanistic.....

Interesting observation you had concerning Brad's animals.....

I have 1.1 from Brad's DV X Melanistic pairing that have thick black borders, solid black ventrals, black heads and lots of black speckling.
Those were the ones I were referring to as "possible visual hets."

They should breed this coming Spring.....We'll see if they produce some melanistic offspring if all goes well.
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

Here are some pics of the 1.1 from Brad Alexander's Melanistic X Dan V. pairing.

In my opinion they are expressing more melanin than a thayeri that is not from melanistic lineage. Just my opinion, I don't know......What do you think?




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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

those have solid black venters? They look typical pre-line bred to me, back when all thayeri looked like that.

The ones I had stayed really light. I gave them away, too many snakes here.

>>those have solid black venters? They look typical pre-line bred to me, back when all thayeri looked like that.
>>
>>The ones I had stayed really light. I gave them away, too many snakes here.

I will find the pics but yep they have almost solid black venters.......
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

Hey, I used to own those snakes, lol. I was going to see if I could dig up some old pictures of them because I had forgotten that you now own them.

I remember when I got them how similar they were to wild caught thayeri. The female(bottom pic) is amazingly similar to this specimen:
Wild thayeri.

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www.hcu-tx.org/

Your male(top pic) also looks quite similar to this specimen, especially in regards to the head pattern, the black spots behind the eyes and the light centered, triangular nuchal blotch. How I wish we could legally collect thayeri! There are so many wild variations that are not represented well in collections. You can hunt game and fish in Mexico but you can't collect herps. Where's the logic in that? Oh well, retorhical question I guess.

It is encouraging to me that there are still some "wild-type" thayeri in collections. Hopefully with more knowledge of the many phenotypes expressed in the wild we can bring some captive lines back to that natural appearance. Not all of them of course, I mean I still like the line bred ones too. I just want both, lol.

Here's the wild thayeri I was talking about; basicly just a higher band count version of yours with less red on the head:

Wild thayeri # 2.

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www.hcu-tx.org/

Tell me about it.....I live just a few hours from Thayeri habitat.....Ironically the things keeping us from going down there to collect wild kingsnakes are two fold.....The LAW you mention above Aaron and the lack of LAW enforcement.....LOL

I wouldn't even head down to Cancun right now.....it is getting terrible....Anarchy and chaos!
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

LOL.....The female IS amazingly similar to that one on Bob's site.......

BTW.....Shannon still owns this pair, I do not......yet?....lol
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com