Finally available for sale, after many years of hoping for these guys ------ Kisatchie Silverleaf ratsnakes.
The silverleaf mutation was discovered in a wild caught snake about 10 years ago. This is a recessive gene to the wild type. KJ Lodrigue proved it out over the next few years and sold some Silverleafs, but there are very few still around. He passed the project on to Graham Criglow, who worked with a pair of hets for a few years, producing some baby silverleafs, but sold very few.
He passed the pair onto me two years ago, along with an extra het male --- these snakes are probably 2008 offspring. I all ready had a male het "black" and het silverleaf that was produced by KJ; Mike Leidner had it for a few years, he passed it on to me back in 2010. Then I was able to find an adult female Silverleaf that Gregg Feaster had/has, and he sent it to me on a breeding loan 2 years ago. So with that group of snakes, plus 2 other females I grew up from 2014, a limited number of silverleaf babies were produced this year, along with some hets and possible hets.
The Silverleaf female, pictured below, is the wild caught female from east Texas in 2006. The other one pictured is one of the babies from this year.
These will all be sold by Don Soderberg with South Mountain Reptiles. Don is almost certainly the only one in the country that is selling the Silverleaf morph of the Kisatchie Ratsnake. Please contact him at
cornsnakes@aol.com, or 830-964-3303. You can also contact me at
lakewaymedical@hotmail.com, or Gregg Feaster; we can answer questions but all sales will be thru Don.
Thanks, Brad Lichtenhan
The only other mutation currently known for Kisatchies is a "black" form, a type of anerythrism, that is a Kisatchie mutation, it is not found in cornsnakes and was not "stolen" from cornsnakes, but is unique to Kisatchies. There may be some "black" Kisatchies being produced in Europe, but I do not think anyone is working with them in the US. Don has some Kisatchies het "black" that he is working with, and I have a "black" that was born this year, and I believe I have a "black" silverleaf from this year, and I have some hets, so hopefully in a few more years the "black" morph will be more available. I had one 8 years ago, and the neat thing about them is they have no yellow at all, they stay black and silver/grey.
Below is a description of Kisatchies in general from Don Soderberg's web page at South Mountain Reptiles.
https://www.cornsnake.net/index.php?...id=252&lang=en
The hobby name, Kisatchie, was unofficially assigned to the newest Ratsnake species to be described in the United States, Panterophis slowinskii, reportedly because the "holotype" was collected near Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana. This doesn't mean that it was the first of its kind to be captured, because I was catching lots of these in 1971 in East Texas and Western Louisiana. The common name assigned when this species was described is Slowinski's Corn Snake, but I personally don't use that name because is contains the word CORN, and this is officially NOT a corn snake. In 2002, Frank T. Burbrink presented sufficient evidence to establish that this snake, Elaphe slowinskii (now, Pantherophis slowinskii), found between the natural ranges of Corn Snakes, Pantherophis guttatus and Great Plains Rat Snakes (aka: Emory's Rat Snakes) was sufficiently dissimilar to those species to warrant distinct species status. Surely this species originated from the ancient natural intergradation of Corn Snakes and Emory's Rat Snakes? In order to preserve their genome in captive specimens, since this snake is soundly dissimilar to those two founding species we hope breeders will resist crossing Kisatchies with Corns or Emory's Rat Sankes. One thing I noticed when first photographing Kisatchies over a decade ago was that no matter how I filtered my strobes with opaque covers, the light heavily bounced back from these snakes. Obviously, unlike their Corn and Emory's cousins, Kisatchies have more iridophores in their epidermis.
Also is a link to KJ's discussion of these morphs from several years ago.
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...d.php?t=104745
Silverleaf and Anerythristic Kisatchie Cornsnakes - FaunaClassifieds
www.faunaclassifieds.com
Silverleaf and Anerythristic Kisatchie Cornsnakes Cornsnakes & Ratsnakes Discussion Forum
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