Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Interesting kennerlyi color morph.


A female in situ herding, chasing and eating toads. She started in the water chasing toads to land. Really cool, but sadly I broke my camera on the above hog(dropped the dang thing) and these two are cell phone shots.

An interesting genetics event. Years ago, I discovered an area with dwarfed chucks.(more to it then just small) Males rarely reached a foot. So a couple years ago, I picked up a pair of neonates to see if in captivity they grew larger, they did not, now I get to try again with their offspring.

Hey Frank.
In the first pic, the snake in your hand is not kennerlyi. That is all nasicus. Do ranges overlap where you are?

The second and third pics are cool. Ever think of bringing a video camera out into the field with you? That would be an actual interesting vid to watch.

The chucks are cool. What is your hatch rate on those guys? I know that even in some of the most capable hands, the hatch rate is very low.

I can prove the little hog out. As I can get head shots of it.
I have taken vids with my Nikon, but it bit the dust, literally just before I observed that event. Of interest, hog habitat is open, so most observations are based on the animal being aware of you. As was this case, but that hog was on a roll and did not care if I was there or not, she had toads to catch. So she kept doing what she was doing. I would leave and come back, and she was still going, etc etc.
About the Chucks, I have no idea what the hatchrate is. As my only interest was to see how big they got in captivity. The last couple of springs, she enlarged some, but this year she was huge. My son, does the husbandry. I am the cage builder, fixer and coach. We were going to attempt to have her lay indoors next year. Then the baby popped up. Of note, my son does a number of torts, so they get tort food, but this year, he heavily supplemented that with pinkies. And they pound pinkies. Also we keep them outside in old varanid cages.
As of now, the adult female attends that baby and keys a keen eye on it. The male to a lesser extent. The pic is how they sleep the neonate between the adults. We indeed enjoy this event. The whole extended family. Baby chucks are cute. Like baby whitethroats.

Sorry for the crappy pic, hopefully its good enough to allow us to see its pure kennerlyi. Its an odd colored and patterned kennerlyi, but by the scales, its kennerlyi.

Frank,
Years ago I visited one of the islands in the Sea of Cortez. Basking on rocks right near the beach, where the bare sand ends and the vegetation just starts, were some lizards that I thought looked like chuckwalla but were very small. Turns out they are endemic chucks, and they are a dwarf race. Not flighty either, I could walk up right alongside, and they cared very little.

Have you been to any of the islands down there? Amazing diversity in a very small space.

These guys are local az chucks. And Yes, I worked on a ethno-biology study with the Seri's and we were on Tiburon island and the mainland. Yes, each island is an island, hahahahahahahahaha.
The problem is, the Seri's would move chucks around. Moving several species to Alcatraz island as a food holding area. now there are many species and hybrids on that island.