"Has anyone seen the FL king in Hubbs book on page 287 at the very top by Kevin Enge? That has to be the coolest FL king ever. Why do we not see those in collections?"



Man!,........I would KILL to own a genuine "Osceola-Suwannee" natural intergrade king from the Duval County area!!!



I have admired those things for YEARS now!. I was talking to Kevin Enge about those at Daytona recently as well. There used to be a fair number around, but have disappeared into the wood-work just like so many other types of snakes have over the years. There used to be all sorts of stuff that was around years ago that is totally unseen in the hobby now.



The name actually originates from a composite of two seperate things, the Osceola National forest and a business that used to have these that had the name "Suwannee" in their business name. This was simply a marketing ploy for sales, but the name has stuck well over the years. They were actually coined "Suwannee" kings.



There is also some natural intergrades from around the Pinellas County area of Florida that have a fairly similar look, although the ones from the Jacksonville area are very noticeably different. Nick Mesa and Lindsay Pike have some of these, and they can vary considerably as well with their phenotype as it all depends on the percentages of either floridana or getula as to what any given animals will look like.



As a matter of fact, back in 1999 here on the forum, there was a thread about them, and this is what one guy asked/said about them..LOL!



the story i heard was that the suwanee is the

: result of the crossing of the indiginous kings

: and an introduced exotic(colony). the story may

: have been pure speculation. i was discussing this

: with someone today(who knows more about the band

: counts and scalation and such of kings than i do).

: we were wondering if a cal king crossed with an

: eastern could produce the suwanee type. don't get

: excited, i don't have any breaking info, i was

: just curious to know the story of it.



Here was Kenneth Krysko's reply to him clearing the silly misconception regarding what this guy heard.



"Zach,



This is totally false! A little more than 10 years ago, some collectors in the pet trade coined the name "suwannee kingsnake" to kingsnakes from a certain area in northern FL, so they could sell more snakes. I believe the original population was from around Jacksonville and not even along the Suwannee River. These variants possess intermediate characters between the 2 recognized kingsnake forms in FL, the eastern (Lampropeltis getula getula) and the Florida kingsnake (L. g. floridana). It has nothing to do with a released exotic form.



Don't feel bad, we have all been misled by the pet trade. Hope this helps!



Kenney Krysko





Anyway, the Osceola-Suwannee's that Kevin had as well as several other's I have seen photos of are truly some of the nicest freakin getula found on the entire planet!..



Here is a killer wild specimen that was taken by a wildlife photographer. He wasn't even aware of just how revered this animal was at all and simply thought it was a common Florida kingsnake!



I would do freakin back-flips if I saw this thing and was able to capture it. Heck, just to even SEE one in the wild would be incredible to me..........



~Doug









-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"





serpentinespecialties.webs.com

[ Show Entire Thread ]