Let's Talk Pits...

Pituophis has to be my favorite genus hands down, especially P. melanoleucus....but Northern pines are always gonna have a special place in my heart, since ive been working the past year and a half on a project here @ NCSU on the life history of these snakes, and spent last summer and this summer out tracking radio telemetry pits....absolutely the greatest thing there is

Pits rule! I've had Northerns in the past and currently have a pair of albino Southerns. I wish I had enough space to have one of every type of Pit. I've had mean ones...one bit me everytime I opened the cage, and I had one that never hissed, buzzed its tail, or struck at me. My favorite was a 6' Northern that I named "Thor". He had tons of 'tude and cut off the circulation in my arm every time I handled him. Gosh I miss them...although my Southerns are the coolest critters in my collection so far.

I got a pair of bulls and really like their personalities. They are still young and hiss everyonce in awhile and try to go in reverse. Great snakes, may need to get more.

You folks are as sick as I am LOL. They are indeed habit forming and after keeping them, it is really hard to get excited by some of my other animals.

John Cherry
Cherryville Farms

My favorite would have to be the Black Pine.
Many many years ago as a teen hiking in the woods of upstate NY I caught a huge specimen well over 7 feet long. He was the most docile animal I have ever picked up in the wild.
I carried that snake around all day before releasing it on the way home pretty close to where I caught it. Had it not been for the fact that I had a new stepmother who had an extreme phobia of snakes I would have loved to have taken him home.
I have not seen one since but he is ingrained on my memory as the snake I would most like to own as a personal pet.

After keeping a large number of Pituophis spp. for years, I am now Pit free, at least my personal collection is Pit free. I have since decided to focus my attention to the genus which is actually responsible for my initial enthusiasm with herpetofauna, the genus Drymarchon, though I will continue to work with the Pituophis spp. within my academic collection. It's just too bad we can't keep everything, as I really enjoyed my Pits...

Best regards,

Jeff

I have 2 gopher snakes, and I love them both. In fact, I'd love to breed gopher snakes. However, I want to keep my localities distinct and I'm afraid the two gopher snakes I have won't be usable for my breeding projects.

One was sold to me as a sonoran het for applegate albino, I really think it's a san diego het for applegate albino. The other was sold to me as a yearling sonoran, who is albino and striped. I've never run across any literature on the web that shows striped gopher snakes in any other locality other than pacific gophers.

The younger one still rattles at least once a week

What is the range of the black pine? I thought they were pretty well restricted to South Central Mississippi, extreme southwest Alabama, and a bit of overlap into Louisiana.

Bulls are just bluff! I have a female that for some reason every once and a while will get defensive if you approach her cage or tap on the glass. Sometimes she'll hiss and strike at the same time pretty hard and keep curling up like she's a prize fighter. I found that if I open the cage quickly and but my fist right next to her face or just pick her up she stops. She thinks she's tough when I am at arm's length from her but the second my hand is "up in her grill" she doesn't know what to do!

Now impressions from germany ...

I love pits and i keep over 70 pits at my place. My favourite are P. melanoleucus.

Some of them try to eat me all the time, some are only hissing and some are absolutly gentle - like humans !

I have 6 black pines and one of them lives in in a rack in the moment. Always, when i open the rack, she's like crazy. Open her mouth, hissing powerful and JUMP out of the case during biting to me !

She's a female - may be that's the reason !