Pros and Cons - Butter vs Lesser

Having no opinion entering the thread and reading what more experienced people have said, I would go with a lesser. You're asking from an investment stand point and the lessers do the same things as butters for less. Lessers are generally from ~$275-$350 and butters are ~$350-$450, from websites like kingsnake and faunaclassifieds. Also the lesser seems to be more common where as a butter just seems like an advertising gimmick to sell the same snakes for more.

I started out as a lesser person... But the butters have grown on me, I personally choose butters because they are less common. Same morph or not there does seem to be a color difference to me good and bad examples do exist of both. There are many ways to make blue eyed lucys any combo of russo, mojave, lesser, butter, and I have heard the opinion that mystic is another blue eyed lucy morph that makes a dirtier version... like super mojave just with some color difference. Dont know if there is any truth to it or not. But back to my ansewer to the original question. I choose butter

The snakes called Butters are descended from a wild caught animal that the Bells proved out. The snakes called Lessers are descended from a line started by Ralph Davis with a totally different WC animal. That's all the difference is.


Here's a cool pair of Lessers I picked up this year. There was a normal in the clutch that also had the same pattern...as well as several clutchmates that didn't have it. They came from Ben Siegel's Lesser x YB clutch if I remember right.

Female
http://www.acreptiles.com/main/image...sserfemale.jpg

Male
http://www.acreptiles.com/main/image...lessermale.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jjmitchell

I have heard the opinion that mystic is another blue eyed lucy morph that makes a dirtier version... like super mojave just with some color difference. Dont know if there is any truth to it or not.

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What you heard is correct. Mystics, Phantoms, Mojaves, Butters, Lessers and "Specials" are all variations of the same genetic mutation on the same allele.

These snakes vary from very light (butter) to very dark (mystic/phantom). The lightest ones make pure white leucies, the mojaves are in the middle and make a leucistic with a greyish purple head, and the mystic/phantoms produce a fairly dark purple snake. You can cross any of these snakes together and produce some variation of a "leucistic" as well.

Once you look at them that way, it's a pretty neat "family" of morphs and they can all be combined to make different types of leucistic.

I just realized after typing that...the "Blue Eyed Leucistic" project might not be as dead end as I thought.

I spent months trying to figure out which to purchase. I specifically worried about the 'browning out' that I've seen in some lessers which prompted me to look into butters. The butters generally have a lighter and creamier coloring, hence the name. I figured that would be a better fit for what I was looking for...

Not to mention, they seem to beess available. And like others have stated, that translates to holding their value better than something that is very readily available.