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Posted by terryp on January 13, 2003 at 21:33:21:
In Reply to: Interesting topic, Terry....> posted by Terry Cox on January 13, 2003 at 19:23:26:
from you Terry. I think the threads concerning the Kentucky black rat snake warrants discussion taking all the species into account. Those guys in Kentucky are showing on a state scale what should warrant a much broader scale discussion. The discussions on color and pattern are not unique to Kentucky. It seems like it if we don't take advantage of a post and move into the discussion of all snakes. Phil has just mentioned Black Pines, (pituophis lodingi) now he has brought in a snake that is not Elaphe. I read that the Black Pine is considered the only melanistic pituophis. My partner Del and I have a trio that shuld hopefully breed this year that we obtained from John Ginter. They can be quite black with barely any pattern at birth or can be lighter with alot of visible pattern that pretty much disappears as the snake ages. The male and one of the females were very black with very little noticeable pattern and one female was lighter with quite a bit of pattern when we received them as hatchlings from John. The lighter one has gotten darker and the pattern is hardly visible now. I agree that there is gray rat snake influence in some of the populations of black rat snakes in Kentucky. I also think that one or several of those poulations have developed melanistic traits from inbreeding ones that have the mutant gene and survived to breed in the range until you have a melanisitc black rat snake that has gray rat snake influence in them. Maybe I'm going to far with that, but I'm just going with the discussion and what I can research. In the part of the article I quoted included several other species as examples which should be added to the Kentucky Black Rat Snake invasion(lol) of this forum. We can't let them have all the fun. I was hoping to draw some Asian or South American species into it. Diones have a wide range like the black rat snake and they vary in color too. There are light phase diones and dark phase diones, the diones from Tembrosia can be very dark with little of the pattern visible because they get dark. I also think there is definately support for the fact that altitude and temperature have an influence in color darkness. Your South Korean diones can be dark,like the ones I got from you, or a lighter phase, the ones I'm hoping for this spring. Are they from different elevations or areas of that have a significant temp change?
