Dean, good point. Here are a couple of explanations...

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: : You know this doesn't direcly pertain to indigos, but I thought I'd look to this group for some support. I check out the colubrid classifieds daily, and I go to a fair amount of shows. : : What is happening to this hobby? Albino nelsons, hypomel. hondurans, Reverse blood red zig-zag zipper (het for snow and chocolate-chip cookie dough blizzard) corns. : : ...not to mention the "jungle corns" and various other hybrids. : : I saw a post on the pituophis forum the other day with a pic of a "scaleless" gopher snake. That one really got to me. : : What the hell ? What's next...het for blind? cool looking scales where the eyes should be? het for legs? : : It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't that seems to really be the way the hobby is headed. the majority of what's on the market are animals the likes of which you would NEVER see in the wild. Man-made. : : It hard to find NORMAL snakes like chain kings (normal ones) and corns that aren't HET FOR ANYTHING!! : : I miss nice REGULAR black and white northen pines. Stuff like that. : : It would be really nice if the hobby would take a turn back in that direction...but I don't see it happening. : : I simply do not find these man made critters interesting at all. : : The Drymarchon community seems to be above all this, at least for now. Let's keep it that way. : : Stepping off my soapbox now... : : : : Dean Alessandrini : Dean, : The observation that you made, I myself pondered several months ago. It seems the public has an INSATIABLE appetitie for new things. Witness people tradeing their perfectly good car in for a "Newer, sportier model"..just because...... : I keep boas as well as Indigos, and within the spectrum of boas, MORPHS have overshadowed allomost all other BCI. Why? : Perhaps it is the color difference, but I suspect it is that these new"Designer" snakes are such "hot items" that they have become "Investment quality" snakes for lots of people, whom desire to make a killing off of their snakes. Almost ALL the investment quality snakes that I have sen, have dropped in price so drastically that the owneres barely made the purchase price back the first year that they bred them. : So much for "investments snakes"! LOL : I lament the lack of interest in supposedly NORMAL looking/occuring species, especially those from THIS country. A few purists out there, like Bart Bruno with Pituophis and a few others, have chosen to keep this a hobby. I have to admit, that I myself have bought snakes that are not in their naturally occuring color phase(Striped Blood Pythons, Salmon-Hypo Boas,Anethyristic Boas, but mainly because I LIKED the WAY they looked. : All my colubrids on the other hand, are all true to natural form, almost all Drymarchon, and no crossing will ever be done by me. : Everglades rats, Fox snakes, Reg Corn snakes, Black and white n. pines, S. pines, Brooksi that arent "Golden Yellow", Normal rosy boas etc etc. : It is a shame that these snakes have taken a back seat to the morphs. I get people asking me for red faced Easterns all the time, and frankly, the diffrence from red faced to black is so minimal, that it makes me wonder if people will one day try to inbreed heavily to produce more red faced,. I dont breed for red, if it comes out great, I breed for UNRELATED bloodlines. I'm glad that we as Drymarchon keepers/breeders havebnt succumbed to the temptation of trying to creat "New markets" by produceing hybrids OR inbreeding. I beleive that this hould be discouraged and those that do it should be shunned. Just my opinion. : : Fredrick Albury

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