It does appear to be a rather normal splendida. But this one is from west of tucson.

Where it occurs is either reminate grassland or real grassland. In southern Ariz, splendida occurs in grasslands mainly, then radiate from there.

What is odd, only a few miles from where this snake was found last night, normal yuma color morph cal kings are found, then above them there are intermediates between cal/splendida/yuma types.

As some mentioned here, the intermediates are often coined as, speedwayensis. A main drag in town.

What is funny is, some here, guessed by local, not by looking at the snake. The local does not matter, the snake matters. This is a splendida, as many here identifyed it.

Of course the beauty that Joe showed has different side markings, but I bet even where his was found, some will have side bars as well. I know I found splendida in constock with side bars, as well as van horn, and Galeana mex.

Whats of interest is the habitat that produced this snake.

As I mentioned below, we went out last night, found 22 snakes, but only one king.

Whats kinda sad is, I rarely take pics of kingsnakes, as I did that for decades(with a SLR) Now I use digital and have very few kingsnake pics in the computer. So now if I see some, I will take their pics for you to enjoy.

I would think the easterners would enjoy our, L.g.speedwayensis, as they sometimes appear very eastern. Cheers FR

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