I just wanted to share some pics of a pair of Thayer's Kings I recently got. They were captive bred by my friend Brad Alexander. The parents were a male of Dan Vermilya lines and a female melanistic phase from Justin Mitcham.
Dan is real well known for his Thayer's but he doesn't breed them anymore. As far as I know Justin is more into hognose and not really a thayeri guy. I really like to trace my animals as far back as possible and I really wish I had a little more detail on where Justin got the melanistic which my friend got from him but it is still a real nice bloodline to have in my thayeri.
Anyways the reason I posted all that info rather than just saying "Hey look at these snakes" is because thayeri keepers are often into their lineages since some lines have been hybridized, to avoid inbreeding and because you can't get any wild caught ones anymore. I don't know if there are many thayeri enthusiasts here but if there are I'm sure some of them would find that info useful.
Thayeri come in a variety of colors and some have been selectively bred for bright flashy colors. Most people prefer those but what I like is ones that resemble wild-type, or naturally occuring color phases. They are actually pretty hard to find. One of the things I do when deciding whether I want to buy a snake is to compare them to photos of actual wild ones. These links will show some pictures of actual wild caught thayeri that were photographed in the wild and released. They are not related to my snakes in any way but my snakes do resemble them, IMHO and I really like that.
http://www.sierraherps.com/gallery/l...s_no2_web.html
http://www.sierraherps.com/gallery/l...s_no1_web.html
I guess I have blabbered a bit but it's only because I was excited to have finally gotten some snakes like these.
First the male:
Below is the female:
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