My Utah locality Intermontane ratsnakes are legally sold F1 animals from a good friend in Utah who was able to obtain a permit to propagate them, but he was limited to collecting only 1.1 individuals from the wild.  As mine mature, I'm really hoping to help get this new locality established in captivity.

Chocolate Emory ratsnakes are still very uncommon with very few having ever been made available for sale.  Chocolate Emory ratsnakes are unique within the entire cornsnake/Emory ratsnake complex because they seem to be the first case of hypermelanism in captivity.  Their coloration goes from looking like a VERY brown Emory ratsnake through a milk chocolate coloration where the blotches are extremely indistinct to an almost brown-black coloration.  On top of the coloration, chocolate Emory ratsnakes typically have many of their dorsal blotches split in half resulting in two paired blotches that look like mirror images on each side of the spine.  Through selective breeding, we are improving the overall "milk chocolate" coloration and split dorsal blotches of our colony.  We continue to have a lot of hope for this project.  Most of ours are descended from animals that were all originally from southeast Kansas, but a few lines have been further outcrossed.  This morph, when combined with other traits, has the greatest potential to develop new, unique, looking snakes of any of the morphs with which we currently work.

There are currently two different bloodlines of Hypomelanistic Emory ratsnakes.  "Type A" is the line that Troy Wilstead started and passed along to Brent Mitchell.  It is also called a ghost Emory ratsnake.  This line traces back to a gravid wild-collected female.  This is by far the best looking line of the pure "hypomelanistic" Emory ratsnakes that I have ever seen.  This has been proven to be a simple recessive trait.  They have "lavender-greenish-brown-mocha" colored blotches on a relatively clean white background with the typical complex pattern for Emory ratsnakes.  Combining this mutation with others can only bring new, outstandingly colored, Emory ratsnakes!  In our opinion, the Type A Hypomelanistic Emory ratsnakes are definitely a pure E. emoryi without a shadow of a doubt.  However, there is some question over the subspecies that this line should be assigned to, and it is highly possible that it comes from the zone of intergredation in the wild.  Since it appears that many  lineages of hypo ratsnakes are suffering some inbreeding-related problems (which has thankfully not been observed in our breeders), we are making sure to outcross our hypo Emory ratsnakes to bring in new, fresh, blood before we begin seeing problems in our breeders.. 

All of our South Texas Emoryi ratsnakes are from the Hebbronville/Freer area.  These Emory ratsnakes are typically larger animals with larger clutch sizes than their more northern cousins. They have black, distinctive, blotches on a silver-grey background with little to no yellow or brown colors.  These are beautiful: what anerythristic cornsnakes should  look like!  The only way to improve on the coloration and pattern of south Texas Emory ratsnakes is to combine it with the reverse striped phenotype.  Our reverse striped Emory ratsnakes were all produced by animals from the Hebbronville/Freer area of south Texas.  They have black, distinctive, blotches on a silver-grey background with no distinctive yellow or brown colors in them, and the blotches tend to be split along the spine to show a unique "reverse" stripe pattern.  This entire bloodline was sparked by one wild-caught male that demonstrated the reverse stripe pattern.  This pattern is definitely inheritable, but we aren't positive that it is a simple recessive trait yet.  The degree of "reverse striping" is variable, with the later generations being more pronounced thanks to selective breeding.  These take our favorite natural coloration of the south Texas Emory ratsnakes and add even one more row of blotches to the top.  Although some are being crossed into other bloodlines, we will try to continue to maintain a pure south Texas group for those interested in the E. e. meahllmorum possible subspecies. 

Kisatchie cornsnakes originally received their common name (at least the one used in the pet trade) from being found near Kisatchie, LA, in Natchitoches Parish, and from first being found by hobbyists in and near the Red Dirt Management Area of Kisatchie National Forest.  Most of my Louisiana stock come from near one or both of those areas.  This is the "typical" Kisatchie corn and the source of the type descriptions.  If you want something that is a locality animal, has the typical Kisatchie appearance, and has some history attached to it, then these are the ones you'll want!  Louisiana locality Kisatchie cornsnakes are more earth-toned than those from Texas, and more cornsnake-like in general appearance, shape, and reproduction.  Texas Kisatchie cornsnakes, often referred to as "Texas cornsnakes," are darker colored than Louisiana Kistachie cornsnakes and possess a more "metallic" sheen to them.  The blotches, which sometimes have a greenish tinge to them, are more of a stark contrast to the background coloration than what is seen in Louisiana locality animals.  Some individuals also possess some red specking between the scales as adults.  Brazos and Grimes Counties, Texas, are about as far west as Kisatchie cornsnakes go in the mid-part of their geographic range.  They seem to be able to get a little larger in size than their Louisiana counterparts and look a little more Emory-like in general coloration and morphology.   Reproduction is more reminiscent of Emory ratsnakes than cornsnakes.  However, we have had a WC gravid female lay as many as 33 eggs a week after she was collected.  My current colony consists of wild caught, captive hatched, and captive bred individuals of known and generic localities.  This allows me to be able to produce a diverse group of completely unrelated offspring from unrelated parents. 

The "Dark-Eyed" Anerythristic mutation is a pure Kisatchie cornsnake (no true cornsnake genes infused into them) takes the Louisiana look and actually improves upon it further.  This trait spontaneously appeared in my colony of F1 and F2 Kisatchie cornsnakes while on breeding loan to Don Soderberg.  These anerythristic (or "aner") Kisatchie cornsnakes appear to completely lack all yellow pigmentation (in the examples we've got so far), and this mutation has been found to not be allelic with the anerythrism mutation in cornsnakes.  This is, therefore, a completely new gene!

The Silverleaf mutation is descended from a recently wild-collected Kisatchie cornsnake with a highly unusual in pattern and color scheme.  The original snake is a light grey color with darker black blotches (no brown), but he has normal colored eyes!  The coloration is reminiscent of the lavender mutation in cornsnakes, but this guy is darker with much blacker blotches and does not have the ruby-colored eyes indicative of lavender cornsnakes.  The posterior dorsal and ventral patterns are slightly obscured into a mosiac, "aztec"-ish, pattern, too.  We are currently in the process of determining if this is an inheritable trait.

Axanthic Blonde subocs are often called "silvers," "pewters," or "platinums;" however, "silver" is also used to describe axanthics without the blonde pattern mutation. My original platinum suboc is descended from Jim Kane's colony, but I have been outcrossing them into a wide diversity of normal colored females.  All Trans Pecos ratsnakes are beautiful animals, but the platinums are one of the best looking (and easiest to handle) snake morphs in the world.