I've spent two decades herping Baja with many trips a year being done. With that I've spent a great amount of time in The Cape region with conjuncta and nitida being the focus of many nights. Mira Flores in my experience is where you find the nitida forum almost solely. Conjuncta is much more wide spread. The dark (Classic conjunta/nitida forums) is found only south of La Paz. North of La Paz The nitida phase is absent and the Conjunta return back to the black and white californiae phase. The thin bands and pattern however does not change for over a hundred miles to the north.



True nitida and conjunta have not been imported legal or illegally in over 20 years. The original (Which at one time were very common) pretty almost completely disappeared from the herp scene no latter then the mid 1990's. The interest wasn't there and they were notorious for being problem feeders. Very few true Cape Kings are being bred anymore and on a rare occasion one will show up out of nowhere.



Also many of the conjunta being advertised are not the real deal. There is no such thing as a black and white conjuncta. Sorry to bum some of you out. That phase is completely absent in the Cape region. The ones that are on KS adds here and there are more or less from the ciudad constitucion area far north of La Paz and the kings there are so common its almost ridiculous some nights with the sheer numbers of them being found.



The real few Cape Kings that are left, history can be easily traced. If you are looking for them , trace it back to the original collector. Otherwise I wouldn't give the other (Supposed) Cape Kings out there in the market the time of day.



Thanks so much for that info, Paul. It answers all the questions I ever had about that morph. And I'm glad you brought up the fact the conjunta morph is often mislabeled around here. They are supposed to be dark like nitida, not black and white. I just have one question if you are still out there. The majority, if not all, the nitida I've seen offered for sale have a perfectly strait stripe, no cross bars or waves in the stripe. Is that what you've seen in the wild too?

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