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Hello everyone,
Last night, 33 montane Mexican rattlesnakes were stolen from my collection housed in Alpine, Texas. Among the snakes were Crotalus willardi amabilis, C. w. silus, C. lepidus maculosus, C. l. morulus, and C. p. pricei. Most were juveniles, except for 4 adult C. w. amabilis and several C. p. pricei. Adults were legally collected and imported from Mexico...the juveniles were offspring from these adults. Despite being in a hurry and working in the dark, the thieves knew which adult
C. w. amabilis to take...they left the oldest adults, and stole 2 adult females and 2 adult males. They also knew not to take the ESA-listed C. w. obscurus. They opened several cages containing baby C. w. obscurus, but did not take any. A police report was filed, and numerous sets of fingerprints were obtained from the glass doors on the Vision cages housing the adults. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, I have an extensive collection of shed skins from all snakes in my collection. You can remove pit tags and hide snakes in dark basements, but you can't change a snake's DNA. I have been saving sheds for exactly this reason (theft). I can use DNA fingerprinting technology to track both the original C. w. amabilis and their offspring (through paternity testing) when they turn up (and they eventually will...be it one week from now or ten years for now). I will also pursue filing charges in a federal court of law since these snakes were of international origin, and can be identified as such. Lastly, I have photos of most snakes (definitely all the C. w. amabilis).
Please let me know if any of you hear anything related to this theft, and pass along the news. The rattlesnake community is pretty small, and these snakes are high profile (especially the C. w. amabilis).
Thanks!
-Rob
Robert W. Bryson, Jr.
Ph.D. Candidate
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Section
School of Life Sciences
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
4505 Maryland Parkway
Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-4004
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