Naja kauothia suphan

Hi Peter
Axanthic alone's not confusing me, as long it won't be bred with every other colour form to create more and more new forms.
I don't really like the imagination kaouthias are going the same way as corn snakes and ball pythons...
But really outstanding animals and marvellous pics!
Peter

Yes I see it as Peter (Z).
The Genetic of calico is still unknown you´ll see it on the Python reticulatus or exists there any new information?
I think that leucistic snakes and calico´s are still different, too! In my eyes partitally leucism doesn´t exist.

Has anyone heard something about marbled kaouthias????

@Peter (P)
He he yes I know the pictures and the colour morph axantic.
These are very pretty kaouthias and very rare I think so.
The axantic and amel kaouthias are the KEY to produce double hets and with these one´s you can produce SNOW Naja kaouthia!!!
But if I take a look at my amel suphan....I think the snow wan´t look very different. Cool

I think most of "color forms", and not only among corn snakes, are made by people in USA. I also hope kaouthias will not follow this way, pictures I posted are just for imagination there is something else yet. As far as I know/remmember, there is just one axanthic specimen over this breeder, who is trying to get more of them. His add is deleted at the moment, but it is showing up from time to time, so I will copy what he is saying in it... It shouldn`t last too long...

Hey, Mario, where are you my friend? It looks we have very nice thread about kaouthias already, don`t we? Wink

Maybe WW could add some of his field experiences with this species over here, if time allows it. Cool

The color morphing starts in the USA, because in some states it wasn´t allowed to keep their own snakes. In nower days the people in the USA are in the mood that they don´t want anything normal in their cages.
I think in Europe the situation is a bit different. I think we all like some color morphs but we see it all more criticaly, what is good in my opinion.
But what we should think all about. We are breeding pets. So why we should blame the guys playing with colors - if it´s done with knowledge it´s fine with me.

Peter Pastor wrote:: Maybe WW could add some of his field experiences with this species over here, if time allows it.

OK, I'll bite ;-)

The intermediates were other specimens of Naja kaouthia that I saw in the facilities of various snake catchers in Thailand in the early 90s. These animals as well as the "real" Suphans came from the provinces just to the north and west of Bangkok - Ayuthaya, Ang Thong, Suphan Buri (hence the name - and it's pronounced Soo-pahn, not Soo-fahn, oder, fuer die deutschsprachigen hier, Su-pahn, nicht Su-fahn Wink

) and Ratchaburi. Some of the intermediates were basically of the same colour as real Suphans, but retained a faintish monocle mark. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of them. Of course, Naja kaouthia is a remarkably variable species in any case

The lack of genetic differences refers only to mitochondrial DNA. At the time, "Suphan cobras" were often considered a different species or subspecies. The lack of consistent morphological or mtDNA differences suggests that they are neither of the above, but just a colour form of Naja kaouthia - that answered the main question I had. Obviously, I am interested in the underlying genetics of this form, but I don't have all that much knowledge of what different "forms" or "phases" are now available in herpetoculture. This is where you guys have a lot to contribute!

Quick Q: what colour is the tongue of your "Suphans" and your real leucistic specimens?

Cheers,

WW

@ WW
Quick answer: The tongue of Alfred Wallner's leucistic was somehow between pink and red.
I'll ask my "suphans" (not those from Carsten) tu put out their tongues tomorrow morning Very Happy

Question: Does the presence or absence of pigments in their tongues allow to tell pigmentless specimens from those with bright or almost white ground colour?
Actually, it's logical, but I never had this idea.

Very interesting thread, so many questions, and still only a few partially answers.

Greetings
Peter

i have to say, this is a very interesting discussion here about the kauothias...
our albino suphan has a pink tong same as the normal het male..

hope we will gather some informations here about this topic....
would love to see some more pictures as well...

have to say, i am not much of a color morph friend in snakes, but on the other hand, it is kind of need, especial the animal shown on Harolds picture, i am amazed by this beauty. you also can see on one picture the tong a tiny bit, the color seams to look like transparent. interesting..

cheers

If I understand it in the right way...these intermediate forms exists there...where the "real" suphans exists, too?

Here are two Pics of my suphan kaouthia where you can see her tongues.
hatchling
Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 1280_3330656562326435

Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 1280_3330656562326435

adult

Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 1280_6334666361363137

This is one interesting topic indeed!

Last year I bought one suphan male which was offered as being a leucistic kaouthia.
I assumed it was a suphan and was confinced about the fact that this was a natural colour form and a normal kaouthia wold result in snakes showing the caracteristics of both snakes.
I started reading more about this subject after I purchased 1.1 Naja kaouthia which we're sold to the former owner as 'pearls'.
They looked like suphans to me but the whole story of the breeder didn't fit. I won't call any names.
The 'pearls' are more then a year old now and don't look any different then my other suphan kaouthia (which I bought as a leucist for a not leucist worthy price).
How I think about it now is that all the names we are talking about are all suphans, and the genes for suphan coloration are more dominant then a lot of people (including me) expected.

Here is one my ' pearls'

Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 Nkaouthia3cq4

Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 Nkaouthia3cq4

Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 Nkaouthia1uf3

Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 Nkaouthia2dt4

Cheers,

Jelmer

Jelmer Groen wrote:: This is one interesting topic indeed!

How I think about it now is that all the names we are talking about are all suphans, and the genes for suphan coloration are more dominant then a lot of people (including me) expected.

or we all got animals from originally close related lines... dont know about dominant genes yet.
what did you think wolfgang? and suggestions?

by the way, beautiful animal Jelmer...

cheers
Mario

The "suphan" gen is recessive, as already proofed by Carsten and other breeders too, but:
all puzzle pieces we already collected here are leading me to the conclusion, that suphan maybe could'nt be the right denomination
for what we're talking about here.
Suphan, in my opinion, was and is still beeing misused for almost every Naja kaouthia showing light to almost white coloration.
I still believe the real suphan to be a geographical color variation, showing all intermediate types, whereas these white colored snakes
with names as "Pearl", "Leucistics" and so on belonging to a line of kaouthias with a kind of genetic defect, showing their special coloration
only in monozygous specimens.
I might be wrong, anybody here to help us out of this uncertainty?
Cheers
Peter

Well, I'm getting pretty sure about my case here (we have all been fooled), but I can't explain it without flaming pale

All very interesting.... The real question remains whether any of the animals circulating under various names in Europe and elsewhere today are the real Suphans that were exported from Thailand back in the 1970s and 80s or not, or something different, and are Suphan's therfore a local variety in Thailand or a single-locus Mendelian mutation.

Most of the animals in Europe seem to be rather lighter than what was being sold as Suphans in Thailand back then.... but the specimen I saw at a friend's collection recently, together with its "wild type" sibling looked exactly like a Suphan as seen in Thailand, which suggests that Suphans maybe were just a mutant form.

Here's a WC specimen bought from a dealer in Thailand:

Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 1071

Cheers,

WW

your suphan on your picture look like Naja philippinensis on the firs glimpse Wolfgang.

did you guys have any DNA samples from real suphan Wolfgang?
and, if yes - is there anything special or different from the Naja kaouthia DNA?

thanks
Mario

Mario Lutz wrote:: your suphan on your picture look like Naja philippinensis on the firs glimpse Wolfgang.

Yup - and it also looks like some yellow N. sumatrana from S. Thailand and some yellow N. sputatrix from E. Java. Shocked

That's why Asian cobra systematics took a little while to sort out - in fact, once you look at scale counts, they are all pretty distinct.

Mario Lutz wrote:: did you guys have any DNA samples from real suphan Wolfgang?

What do you think I was doing in Thailand with that specimen? Laughing

Mario Lutz wrote:: and, if yes - is there anything special or different from the Naja kaouthia DNA?

No, no differences in mtDNA sequence at all - however, that is consistent with pretty much any of the hypotheses that have been proposed in this thread and elsewhere. At the time, main main concern was whether it was a different species/subspecies or not - it clearly isn't.

Cheers,

Wolfgang

Hello Wolfgang.

When you we're in Thailand, did you see any young specimens of Naja kaouthia, suphan form?
It seem to me that this snakes colour tend to get darker and darker, the older they get.
In fact I have send you an email about this whole issue a few months ago, but I received an auto-reply that you we're traveling and couldn't answer it.
Nice to see that you are discussing this issue here anyway Smile

Cheers,

Jelmer

Hi Jelmer,

Ooops - apologies for the unanswered email - turns outit's still sitting in my inbox since Christmas Day!

I never saw any juvenile Suphans - but then the catchers there aren't all that interested in juveniles - not much meat, bile, blood or leather!

The beats on your photos does look vaguely Suphan-ish - as I said here, I have seen myself "Suphan-like" cobras and their "normal" sibglings from the same clutch, so I am starting to believe that they really are a single-locus mutation.

The thing I find interesting is that these leucistic or Suphan specimens that everybody is talking about here don't ever seem to have a hood mark - or has anyone here seen one with a hood mark? Seems very strange, given that they are clearly not albinos or anything like that. On the otehr hend, I definitely saw N. kaouthias in Thailand which had pretty much the same ground colour as Suphans, but with a paler monocle.... so who knows....

Cheers,

Wolfgang

Hello Wolfgang,

No problem at all, I'm not looking for your apollogies. The auto reply made sense to me Wink

Thanks for your reply. I have to admit that the pale monocle you are referring to in wild populations (I've never seen them in captivity) is a piece that doesn't fit in my puzzle.

Another point I'd like to discuss is the fact that suphans always seem to have darker coloured area on the top of their heads. I'm not sure wether this is typical for this snakes but personally I have never seen a white or 'suphan' Naja kaouthia that didn't have this darker coloured area on his head. Though, I have to admit that compared to other people on this forum I probably haven't seen a lot of white specimens for sale.
Is there anything you (or anyone else offcourse) can say about this?

Cheers,

Jelmer

Interesting topic!
My 'white/pearl/suphan' specimens went to Jelmer.
The animals were called pearl, because they were not leucistic (pure white), but I didn't know either if it were 'suphans', so the genetic back-ground was unknown.

Whatever what name these snakes will be labeled, I like them Cool

Cheers,
Harold

After a while we have next addition, resp. answer into our "Suphan" puzzle...
50 days after laying start babies from our Naja kaouthia breeding - "Suphan" female x Albino male hatched yesterday... We were very curious how they will look like, and the result is ..... babies are normal colored!!! I was hoping in better result (I mean according to colors), but we have now at least hetero specimens to work with in few years...

All the best,
Peter P.

Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 P1050310

Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 P1050310

Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 P1050311

Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 P1050312

Naja kauothia *suphan* - Page 2 P1050313

At first congratulations...the are looking very nice.

So it really seems that the suphan gen is recessive.

These little one´s so are double het. for amelanistic and suphan. So if you´ll breed them together 1 of 16 maybe will be an amelanistic suphan --> pure white with red eyes. Beautiful Cool

By the way I still have 1-2 pairs of them to sell...

Carsten Frömberg wrote:: So it really seems that the suphan gen is recessive.

These little one´s so are double het. for amelanistic and suphan. So if you´ll breed them together 1 of 16 maybe will be an amelanistic suphan --> pure white with red eyes.

it seems to be like that... at least if there where Boa´s... Laughing

i am not patience enough to wait until this babies are ready to breed... it means another 4-5 years waiting
Rolling Eyes

Carsten Frömberg wrote:: By the way I still have 1-2 pairs of them to sell..

post them with pictures at the for sale Board Carsten, i am sure they will find a new home in a flush.

cheers
Mario

@Peter

congratulation my friend!!!
cute little snakes (i want 1.1 if thats ok?)

cheers
Mario

Sure Mario,

consider it as done Wink

I will choose you nicest pair of them...

Best regards,
Peter P.

Carsten Frömberg wrote:: At first congratulations...the are looking very nice.

Thanks Carsten...

Carsten Frömberg wrote:: So it really seems that the suphan gen is recessive.

Yes, that looks like this...

Carsten Frömberg wrote:: These little one´s so are double het. for amelanistic and suphan. So if you´ll breed them together 1 of 16 maybe will be an amelanistic suphan --> pure white with red eyes. Beautiful

As we have 2 pairs of heterozygots on amelano suphans from last year, I think we will pair them together with some of these ours babies to have a higher chance of getting babies we are looking for. In this way we will not breed related specimens, what is always good...

Carsten Frömberg wrote:: By the way I still have 1-2 pairs of them to sell...

I know, will contact you if we can fix something out... Wink

All the best,
Peter P.

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