Hi all. I have noticed recently, as have quite a few other people I believe, that house snakes are becoming more and more popular. As of the current moment, the Morphpedia is lacking in the available traits primarily because they are not separated by species. There are multiple species of house snakes in captivity, including Cape house snakes (Boaedon capensis) which have T-, T+, hypo, Bushveld albino, granite-type, as well as localities; Boaedon fuliginosis, the black house snakes, which also include green variants and illumo crosses; Stripe house snakes (Boaedon lineatus); the new species of Near-forest Black house snakes that myself and Christen (Stygian Exotics) are working with (Boaedon perisilvestris); as well as aurora house snakes which are not as common (Lamprophis aurora). I’m sure I am forgetting some of the traits and localities, but I’m wondering - with house snakes as closely related as they are with overlapping ranges, I think it would be really beneficial and important to separate house snakes by species, which will also allow us to label hybrids properly. Is the species change something we could add to the house snake category in addition to the morphs themselves? I’d be happy to help do research and citations for it.
I assume staff just isn’t able to keep up with the rumblings in the hobby, so bringing up species requests like this and making morph applications is probably the easiest way to get them added. And with how fickle the market is, keeping up with the new popular species on the block isn’t easy. A last year it was everything jumping spiders. This year it’s house snakes. Heck, I even jumped in with a BEL and T- pair from Bushveld. They’re adorable.
It’s just a pain if you don’t know origins and breeder and such to list them under with the easy exemption of Bushveld albino. Lol.
I fully agree with all of this. I also think it’s gonna be a massive pain in the butt because house snake taxonomy is an evolving thing and we can expect further reclassification as time goes on. That said, I do think it would behoove both breeders and MorphMarket to at least delineate by species, and be able to mark hybrids. (As a classification pedant it annoys me that no one ever marks Butters as hybrids; they’re obligate hybrids!)
I didn’t realize that red kenyas are fulis. Are they fulis, or fuli crossed with capes? That’s interesting! And yes, there’s gonna have to be some reclassification involved and I hope to keep that to a minimum here on MM but I think at least doing the basic species most commonly kept in captivity or being established in captivity (capensis, fuliginosis, perisilvestris, lineatus, etc.) is only of benefit to both breeders and keepers here. Better to get on top of it now than in 2-3 years when the hobby has exploded and no one is labeling anything.
I believe they’re a pure fuli locality – but maybe don’t quote me on it. This is based on info on April Linkfield’s website where she was doing some KZN/Red Kenya crosses, and the occasional mention of it on the big house snakes facebook group, but I haven’t gone looking for the scientific source of it yet.
In any case, agree wholeheartedly we should at least have the species delineations, and have em early.