I look at it like an interesting "Sasquatch" or "Loch Ness" tale,...nothing more. I don't think the snake is anything but an interesting aberrant patterned L.g.splendida. Now, how it might have ever got that many miles from its natural range on the isolated island on the total opposite side of the gulf would be pure speculation too.



For all anyone really knows, Van Denburgh and Slevin could have easily captured an aberrant splendida, transported it along with them, and "claimed" to have found it there for the notoriety they knew it would give them in the academic world. Odd how nothing else was ever found there in many subsequent searches on the island since 1921.



What are the odds of ONE single bizarre aberrant splendida making it over there on storm-blown debri?..LOL!



It doesn't look anything like an intermediate specimen between nigrita and splendida as suggested in the book either. Hell, as many know, the so-called MBK (nigrita) have the EXACT SAME pattern as splendida anyway prior to their pattern being obscured with melanin as they mature. And L.g.nigrita in my opinion is nothing more than a clinal variant melanistic form of L.g.splendida anyway. It is only because of all the captive line-breeding anyway. Because before they were bred by everyone for displaying the preferable solid black coloration as hatchlings right out of the egg, many looked like straight-up pure Desert kings (L.g.splendida) with very distinct patterns until they matured more. I remember seeing a pure well-patterned/colored splendida phenotype get totally solid black within 9 months time. I bet the drug Cartel mules see all sorts of natural splendida patterned MBK juveniles as they are carrying their dope through the desert...







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



serpentinespecialties.webs.com

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