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The pied mussurana, not a Drymarchon but wow!

The BoidSmith

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The pied mussurana, not a Drymarchon but wow!

The mussurana (Clelia occipitolutea) is one of the most beautiful and largests colubrids of South America. Adult individuals measuring 6 feet are not uncommon. Rear fanged, and jet black as an adult, it’s almost identical to Drymarchon. It feeds mainly on other snakes although it can easily be trained to accept rodents.

During a recent herping trip to South America I had the opportunity to visit the facilities of David Fabius, one the more experienced breeders of this species. He is currently breeding not only the “normal” form but also the pied variant. After 13 years of hard work he has been able to produce the “super” pied form (see attached picture). For those that love indigos this is another species to drool all over.

Regards,

Dan
 

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Well, we finally decided to import one. We currently have a baby male that's eagerly taking pinks. In the near future we might be adding a female to our breeding colony.

Regards.
 
Will do as soon as I get to it. We imported a pied male (not super) but has a lot of red and white on him. Incredible looking animal.

Regards,

Dan
 
Thanks Doug ;) ! For those that don't know Doug is one of the breeders of this species here in the US. He gave me a huge hand with the importation of this specimen. The one we have here is doing great on pinks. How's yours doing?

Regards.
 
that one is awsome, Jeff S mentioned that the breeder may also have a leucistic animal, would you happen to have pics of, or know where i can find pics of that animal?
 
Mine is munching down the f/t pinks and fuzzies real nice and putting on some weight. Thanks for asking Dano.... Where's my Macallan? :eatpointe

As for the Luecistic specimen... I think David Fabius has what is as close to that as we'll see anytime. The piebald trait covers almost the entire body leaving just a few spots with normal color. Dan and I have animals that pretty much look the same... predominantly black with white patches and some red patches mixed in.

I'll get some pics of mine set up soon and I'll let everyone know.

The normal black mussurana is no little thing though. It is the only colubrid that I like as much as drymarchon. Pretty soon I'll have some nice feeding pics to showoff too.

Till then


:scatter:

Doug T
 
Looks awesome Dan, I can't wait to see your pics!! :)
 
Where's my Macallan?
Click to expand...

I need to solve the shipping issue, you want it to arrive in one piece right? Like live arrival guaranteed ;) ? I haven't forgotten though...
 
Okay guys-

This is the Drymarchon forum, not the Bioruna, Clelia, Pseudoboa, or whatever taxonomist are calling them this week, forum or even the opisthoglyphous forum, so I must object to the propaganda surrounding the species here on the Dry forum, especially since I don't have any! ;0) Of course, this should be remedied in the near future, thanks to DT, though I really need another pair of high maintenance snakes like another hole in my skull.
The photos are great and it’s good to see the Mu’s gaining a larger following stateside. I’m not a big color morph fan, just give me a good textbook specimen, but it’s always interesting to see a top tier predator in the color morph form, as such appear to be quite rare. Again, I prefer the “natural” phenotype and I believe such are rare enough in US collections to warrant awe, though I will admit to enjoy viewing photos of the piebald specimens.


Best of luck with those guys and keep the photos coming,

Jeff
 
Jeff,

We are in agreement there. The "normal" black form is beautiful in it's own right. Regardless, I don't have a problem with those spontaneous mutations that appear in the wild. Albinos, leucistics, melanistic and even pied forms are natural occurrences of many species. A different story altogether is the "super-duper-high contrast-bumblebee" (hetero for something if we want to top it off) ;)

Regards.
 
You're right, Dan,

They are all beautiful in their own right and I have encountered a few color morph specimens in the wild, limited to amelanistic Thamnophis and Heterodon.
I simply hope, since Mu's are far and few between here in the US, those working with them will not start pairing every normal specimen to a piebald specimen. I know most who currently have Mu's won't, but there are those who only see the $$$$ when it comes to such specimens. We have already seen the demise naturally pigmented CB P. m mugitus, CB Elaphe and now CB Python regius and I would hate to see such happen with the Mu's, especially before I have an opportunity to get my hands on some! ;0)
I agree, the “boutique” morph market appears to be getting a bit “out there” these days. On a good note, I have noticed an increase of interest, among youngsters with an affinity for such, in regards to the study of genetics and mathematics, so all isn’t bad!

Best regards,

Jeff
 
you know i agree Jeff, the originals are the best, but i do still like anything that came out of the wild, especially a white snake, those get me everytime. there definitly is the risk of morph-men ( defined as those who seek to make "hypo coral bumblebee yellow snow turquoise patternless pearl swirley back's" out of every species out there) seeing these and bringing in and breeding more of them than there are of normals, mu's are SUPER neat snakes and i too want a pair... or 4.. of them, lol. first things first though i still need a large collection of drys built up
 
The pied mussuranas are offspring of wild types, but I doubt that a "super" pied, the almost entirely white type, wouldn't have much chance to live.

A more important thing is continuing to bring in new lines so that we have a good genetic foundation to work with. That's really the focus at this point in the game for all of us.

An interesting point about the pie'ds is that they have been available for several years, yet this is the first year that folks here in the USA have got any. I think that the typical mussurana keeper is going to want to work with Blacks first and then maybe add a piebald to the mix once they've had some success with Blacks. Not a bad plan.

Anyway, hopefully we can all get all the dry's and all the mu's and all the stuff we want, just like Jeff

Doug T
:eatpointe
 
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