Blacktail Cribos, Drymarchon melanurus melanurus, are the Central American cousins to the Indigos.  Of all the drymarchon I keep, I think these guys are my favorites.  The contrast between the yellowish/tan bodies and the coal black tails is striking.  They are alert, active, and will eat anything you put in front of them!  When they reach lengths of 7-8 feet, they are truly formidable snakes.

 

Many of the “blacktail” cribos in today’s market don’t grow into having very black tails as adults.  Many have tails that turn brown as they age, giving them a more unicolored look.  There has been much debate over this... Some maintain that unicolor cribos and blacktail cribos are the same snake and are just variations of each other.  Others maintain that wild caught imports often come from areas where blacktails and unicolors intergrade.  I won’t expound on the subject here, but I will say that it is extremely important to me that my blacktails actually have black tails as adults, and that my unicolors are true unicolors.  Before making a blacktail purchase, ask to see pics of the breeders!  There’s no guarantee of how a baby will look as an adult, but you’ve got a pretty good idea if you’ve seen pics of the parents.

 

We’ve been working on producing animals from two different lines.  Our “Clean” line is characterized by having a very light, smooth base color that is a very light tannish yellow color.  These are highly-contrasted animals with black tails.  Our “Mottled” line is characterized by having long, jet black tails, but by also having black flecking and mottling on the top half of the body.