Well, I can't say that I know for sure. I've never heard of anyone who actually knows the origins of whitesided Texas rats, and I never saw whitesided Texas rats until a few years ago, while blacks have been around for quite a while. My personal thought's on it, based on observations I've made . . .

I see snakes that are simply sold as "rat snakes" constantly. Whitesided, several types of albinos and leucistics. A LOT. This is partially because in Pennsylvania(where I'm located), it's illegal to sell normal black rat snakes(although morphs ARE considered legal by the fish commission, since none of the morphs originated with wild PA stock). By leaving the "black" out, a lot of people assume they're integrades, or that they're Texas rats. I can tell you I've actually seen people set up at reptile shows who have told me that they don't know whether or not it's legal to sell morphs of black rats, but if they just put "rat snake", they can always say it's a Texas, and no one will know the difference. Thus, I am inclined to say that the whitesided Texas rats probably sprouted up out of this type of marketing.

On top of this, a ton of people subscribe to the new theory that they're all obsoleta, and it doesn't matter. How many of the animals merely labeled "rat snakes" are from these people?

Add on to that how many people simply accept whatever they're told about an animal, and don't have any clue about classification or taxonomy, and then think- Well, I see albino Texas rats, and leucistic Texas rats. Now here's a "whitesided rat snake" that is built just like my Texas rats . . . I guess someone forgot to write "Texas" on the label!

I'm not trying to knock anyone here, but a lot of people in the herp trade aren't exactly the most intelligent, or educated people. There are a LOT of people out there who breed all kinds of morphs of different species of snakes, and don't have a CLUE what the latin names of these snakes are. To these people, how much of a difference is there between Elaphe obsoleta lindheimeri and Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta?.

There is also a ton of debate about whether or not these are localities of the same animals, or subspecies of the same animals, and whether or not there should be any differentiation at all between them.

And one final thought-
The whitesided gene is allelic between black rats, Everglades rats, yellow rats, and Texas rats. This tells me that somewhere along the line, one animal passed on the gene to all of these. Somewhere in the history of evolution of these snakes, they're all related anyway. In a couple instances, the gene popped up in "unrelated" animals of WC descent, and in a couple, it was bred into them. A ton of these animals have overlapping ranges in the wild, anyway, with black & Texas integrades being extremely common.

Does anyone else know anything about them? Anyone have any history on any pure whitesided Texas rats?



Hope this helped, even though it was confusing!
Ronnie Nocera

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