Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Recent Happenings: Ratsnake Foundation Interview, Recent Pairings, New and Old Literature, Gravid Females, etc.
Hello all! Busy, busy, busy. So much has been happening around here recently.
One cool thing to report is that I was was just interviewed by the Ratsnake Foundation (www.ratsnakefoundation.org) for their quarterly online publication, the Ratsnake Digest. The July 2008 issue was just published to the web yesterday, and there are many great articles from a wide variety of respected experts. There's even a wonderful, lengthy, hard-to-find article on Charles Bogert (who many species of herps, including subocs, were named after) and another great rare one on Trans-Pecos Ratsnakes.
I would suggest becoming a member, if you haven't already. It's a great organization based in the U.K. and dedicated to the dissemination of everything related to ratsnakes, and the content caters to the academic and hobbyist alike. Go check it out! You won't regret it.
It appears we have several gravid females. The Triple Het female (hoping for Snows or something cool, of course), a couple of Axanthic Blondes, a Pink phase, a Gray phase, and some possible Het Albinos all are not interested in food, which is weird for non-gravid females this time of year (except the Pink one, she's always been a ravenous eater). The Orange phase animals have bred this past weekend, which was a pleasant surprise.
At least two of the aforementioned snakes were with the Patternless male, our one-of-a-kind celebrity here at Suboc.com. More news on that soon.
Recently, I picked up a boatload of old issues of The Vivarium magazine along with several other older publications. I subscribed to that magazine as a young teeneager, and have always wanted to complete my collection. Anyway, I was pleased to find what are very likely the first pictures in print of a wild-caught Albino and an Axanthic (aka Silver) Blonde. Both of the photos were featured in two of the "Cutting Edge of Herpetoculture" special issues of The Vivarium in 1997 and 1998. The photos were taken by the originators of those two morphs -- respectively, Dave Barker of VPI, Inc. and Mark Bell of Reptile Industries.
Philippe de Vosjoli, once again, praises the suboc in these issues for being one of the most beautiful snakes in the world and for being an excellent candidate for desert vivaria displays.
If you ever get a chance to buy old issues of The Vivarium, do it. Though some of the info is now somewhat antiquated, content-wise, it went WAY above and beyond what any other herpetocultural publication has ever done, in my opinion.
More soon!
One cool thing to report is that I was was just interviewed by the Ratsnake Foundation (www.ratsnakefoundation.org) for their quarterly online publication, the Ratsnake Digest. The July 2008 issue was just published to the web yesterday, and there are many great articles from a wide variety of respected experts. There's even a wonderful, lengthy, hard-to-find article on Charles Bogert (who many species of herps, including subocs, were named after) and another great rare one on Trans-Pecos Ratsnakes.
I would suggest becoming a member, if you haven't already. It's a great organization based in the U.K. and dedicated to the dissemination of everything related to ratsnakes, and the content caters to the academic and hobbyist alike. Go check it out! You won't regret it.
It appears we have several gravid females. The Triple Het female (hoping for Snows or something cool, of course), a couple of Axanthic Blondes, a Pink phase, a Gray phase, and some possible Het Albinos all are not interested in food, which is weird for non-gravid females this time of year (except the Pink one, she's always been a ravenous eater). The Orange phase animals have bred this past weekend, which was a pleasant surprise.
At least two of the aforementioned snakes were with the Patternless male, our one-of-a-kind celebrity here at Suboc.com. More news on that soon.
Recently, I picked up a boatload of old issues of The Vivarium magazine along with several other older publications. I subscribed to that magazine as a young teeneager, and have always wanted to complete my collection. Anyway, I was pleased to find what are very likely the first pictures in print of a wild-caught Albino and an Axanthic (aka Silver) Blonde. Both of the photos were featured in two of the "Cutting Edge of Herpetoculture" special issues of The Vivarium in 1997 and 1998. The photos were taken by the originators of those two morphs -- respectively, Dave Barker of VPI, Inc. and Mark Bell of Reptile Industries.
Philippe de Vosjoli, once again, praises the suboc in these issues for being one of the most beautiful snakes in the world and for being an excellent candidate for desert vivaria displays.
If you ever get a chance to buy old issues of The Vivarium, do it. Though some of the info is now somewhat antiquated, content-wise, it went WAY above and beyond what any other herpetocultural publication has ever done, in my opinion.
More soon!
# posted by Dusty Rhoads @ 11:19 AM 
