Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I figured I should start posting here in the Mexicana Subforum since it has been so dead lately.....

Here's some 2010 female thayeri.......produced by Robert Hansen.
All of these girls are siblings....I love the speckling on a couple of them.....

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

very nice...but you need a retro male!!!

>>very nice...but you need a retro male!!!

I have 4 of them left as well.....lol
I'm only holding back a single pair...........
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

I have noticed that IMHO retro males are alot harder to find than retro females. My hypothesis on that is that in nature females tend to stay put at or near the outcrop or area where they hatched, whereas males tend to roam. I think this may have led to color and pattern being more adaptable in males so that in captivity under selective breeding pressure males have changed more than females. In the milksnake phase this doesn't seem to be very noticable but in the leonis phase I have noticed that really truly classic looking females are alot easier to find than males.
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www.hcu-tx.org/

>>I have noticed that IMHO retro males are alot harder to find than retro females. My hypothesis on that is that in nature females tend to stay put at or near the outcrop or area where they hatched, whereas males tend to roam. I think this may have led to color and pattern being more adaptable in males so that in captivity under selective breeding pressure males have changed more than females. In the milksnake phase this doesn't seem to be very noticable but in the leonis phase I have noticed that really truly classic looking females are alot easier to find than males.

I agree with your hypothesis Aaron.....interesting thinking....

I, too have one myself....
Most female mexicana (Ruthveni included) have more mottling than males. I've even seen this in Milk Snake Phase Thayeri......and Female Mex Mex are more drab and darker as well.
I think the females evolved to be more camouflage to protect the future populations they carry.
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

Very nice John. I love the "natural" mexicana's
www.4lakessnakes.com

I regard the tiny speckles as a retro trait too. Virtually all of the thayeri I can remember from the 90's had those tiny speckles. For example if you looked closely at a buckskin phase you could see it was actually tons of tiny different colors, red, orange, black, gray and green, that when combined and from a distance, gave the impression of a single color. Sometimes hatchlings would be clean but usually by the time they were one and a half to two years old you could see the speckles.
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www.hcu-tx.org/