• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

I know this isn't a corn... but...

S

SnakesAndStuff

New member
Hey guys,

First off I know that this is not a corn snake, but lets face it, there aren't a ton of black rat snake forums. I figured the bleed over from a closely related species would hopefully be acceptable.

I've come across a wild caught unusual black rat snake. I've bred various rat snakes, corns, etc over the years. I'm mainly a venomous keeper and have kept quite a few interesting animals from varios species of Bothrops to our native hots to various arboreal pitvipers including Trimeresurus mangshanensis (or whatever genus it is classified in this week).

With that in mind, it looks like I might be back to breeding colubrids in my near future. Tell me what you think of this animal. The animal is in shed in this photo, hopefully it'll shed out soon so I can get some good photos.

Thanks

icj1nFl.jpg
 
That is very cool!

I'm wondering if it has any genetic relation to the Calico black rats, which originated from a w/c animal in Kentucky. Will Bird has worked with them for years, and this is one of mine from him.



It would be interesting to see some offspring from yours.

Kathy
 
It's a cool looking snake!
Honestly, to me, it looks more like a cornsnake than a rat snake.
 
It's head made me think corn too, but it looks like corns aren't found in AR, except maybe in the extreme south central part, whereas Great plains rats range into the west and north. Black rats and grey rats are both found throughout the state.

What a cool find, I think you may want to consider getting back into colubrids ;)
 
That's a pretty cool snake. I'd be interested to hear what Don Soderberg thought of it. I'm certainly no expert in telling a P. gutattus from any other ratsnake in that range, but the head seems refined.
 
Sort of looks like what you might think an anerythristic or charcoal Palmetto corn might turn out resembling...
 
What a great find! Looks like a corn snake to me :shrugs: but I have no experience with rat snakes. Would be cool if this turned out to be like another palmetto type snake. Reminds me of an Oreo :)
 
As far as the corn vs rat goes... The animal was caught in an area where there aren't corn snakes. I've seen a LOT of variation in rat snakes in the area, but a true corn is not one of them. In the photo (and especially the head of this snake) it is in the overlap area of corn snake vs. rat snake. However, in person the snake does have MUCH more of a rat snake "feel" to it.

Not to beat a dead horse here, as I'm sure it has been discussed before, with it being a morph, and without seeing its parents, their parents, etc etc etc an seeing the egg being laid and watching the animal hatch out I cannot 100% sure tell you exactly what it is, and I don't think anyone can, and there is probably enough DNA overlap between the species that even if someone was to go as far as DNA testing it would be hard to find the right markers etc to be 100% definitive. Based on locality, overall feel in person, and the ventral pattern and how the dorsal pattern looks on the snake near the venter I'm going to say that my honest ID is black rat snake. Believe me, as far as value on animals go I'd rather it be a corn snake, but I just don't feel that it is.

I sent Don Soderberg another photo and very briefly discussed my thoughts on it and we both believe it to not be a corn. I also think there is something different going on with this snake than what you see in Chocolate Chip Rat Snakes and/or Palmetto corns (too "smudgy" of a look), and I don't believe I am alone in this thinking. I also don't think it is similar to the "calico" North American rat snake morphs that I've seen before.

After it sheds out I'll perhaps get some better photos of it. The snake has several scars and probably wasn't going to last much longer out in the wild. It is large enough that I would not be surprised if it has already put its genes back into the wild population where it was found.

I at first was going to keep things a little on the secret side. What if it doesn't prove out? What if a freak accident happens and the animal dies? I'm not new to rat/corn breeding, and not new to breeding in reptiles in general. I've captive bred various North American Pitvipers, various Bothrops species, several Crotalus species (including morphs from albino eastern diamondback rattlenakes to albino, melanistic, and pink western diamondbacks etc). I've served as a nusery of sorts for other venomous reptile keepers getting hard to start babies going and stable. I kinda got burned out and disgusted (actually had people criticizing me b/c I elected to not breed certain snakes just for the purpose of breeding them). I've even had people demand to know how many snakes of what species and what morphs (fat chance), and I pissed keepers off when I sold albino eastern diamondback rattlesnakes for $250 ea. when others were selling them for $1k+.

However, I decided this was neat enough that I'd rather share it with the community. The snake is an adult male. I have not decided what I will breed it to, how many etc. I'm definitely open for suggestions. I'll let people come up with their own speculation etc, but I'll just supply the facts. :)

For those that may be interested, a snapshot of the venter is below:

CgYAqw4.jpg
 
loyalsissaly84 said:
Beautiful! If you do breed them, how much would they run around?
Click to expand...

They will probably slither. Unless there are some really crazy hidden traits that I do not currently foresee, they will be hatched out without legs, preventing their running around. :laugh:

As far as price? I have no idea. That is years down the road. I won't even begin to speculate at this point.
 
Also, even though I am hoping it is genetic, there is no guarantee. It could be a one-off non-reproducable trait. Anything is possible.
 
SnakesAndStuff said:
They will probably slither. Unless there are some really crazy hidden traits that I do not currently foresee, they will be hatched out without legs, preventing their running around. :laugh:

As far as price? I have no idea. That is years down the road. I won't even begin to speculate at this point.
Click to expand...

Omg, you made my day... i couldn't stop laughing. But that lil guy is so gorgeous.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top