Written with a true completist approach, this book is a tour de force account of the elegant Trans-Pecos Ratsnake of the Chihuahuan Desert. It is the first and only book ever written about the most divergent and beautiful of all the many colubrid snake species of North America, the Desert Ratsnakes -- including the Trans-Pecos Ratsnake (
Bogertophis subocularis) and their West Coast "cousin", the Baja California Ratsnake (
Bogertophis rosaliae).
The Complete Suboc is a monograph of these beloved bug-eyed beauties of the southwestern United States and Mexico.
Here is a sample of what is included:
- 288 full-color photos.
- 291 glossy pages of text.
- Range maps for all species and subspecies.
- Lengthy, detailed chapters on natural history, captive history, choosing a Trans-Pecos Ratsnake, color and pattern morphs, geographic variation and localities, caging and housing requirements, diseases, feeding, breeding, egg-laying, and incubation of eggs.
- Over one hundred full-color images displaying animals from more than 25 different geographic localities, including specimens from Texas, New Mexico, Mexico, and representing all known color phases, with several rare images of wild-caught Albinos, Axanthics, Green Blondes, and other varieties.
- SPECIAL chapters on how to make exciting, zoo-quality naturalistic vivaria for Desert Ratsnakes, AND on providing zoo enrichment methods for ratsnakes.
- BONUS chapter by award-winning authors, biologists, and snake breeders, David and Tracy Barker, detailing their special "no brumation" technique to breeding Trans-Pecos Ratsnakes -- an alternative breeding method sure to be a hit for those who do not or cannot hibernate their animals during the winter!
- A second BONUS chapter detailing the natural history, husbandry, captive color morphs, geographic variation, and breeding of all other species of North American ratsnakes unique west of the Pecos River, including Baja Ratsnakes (Bogertophis rosaliae), Baird's Ratsnakes (Pantherophis bairdi), and Western Green Ratsnakes (Senticolis triaspis). Over 41 pages in this chapter, alone.
- The first-ever color photos of the Trans-Pecos Ratsnake's poorly known Mexican subspecies, the "Durango Suboc".
- An extensive 23-page bibliography.
- "My Search for Subocularis", a special field-herping chapter paying tribute to -- and in the style of -- the legendary Carl F. Kauffeld.
Dusty Rhoads has had a lifelong interest in reptiles. Like most academic herpetologists, he kept many species of reptiles and amphibians as a youth, starting at the age of five, and hatched his first herp, a Leopard Gecko, at the age of 15. As a herpetoculturist and naturalist, he has focused on the genus Bogertophis -- the Trans-Pecos and Baja Ratsnakes -- for the past decade.
After serving a two-year mission for his church from the age of 19-21, he worked as a veterinary technician at small and exotic animal hospitals, and he attended Brigham Young University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Integrative Biology. While at BYU, he also worked in the BYU Evolutionary Genetics lab and as a curatorial assistant in the Reptiles and Amphibians Collection of the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum.
Dusty is currently a graduate-level scientist, pursuing his PhD in Biology at Ole Miss (the University of Mississippi) studying the evolution, biogeography, phylogeography, and conservation of tropical reptiles and amphibians. He is a proud native of Texas.
