Hi John, Thanks for responding, I will explain this quickly as I am off to a local herp show. We, my partner and I, and a few others, including don shores, where leaving my friends restrant on the southwest side of tucson when we found that king on the patio.

The reason I started posting local kings(as we find them) is, they are many different types of kings and they may or may not have influence of other types. This concept is going to be very difficult for you to understand, because you and others only know them as captives and man made names.

These kings do not have Cal king influence, they are indeed splendida derived, but are not splendida. They appear very splendida looking as babies, but will indeed grow up to become nearly all black. This population will attain a very large size for kings in our area, with individuals getting over five feet fairly commonly. There is no indication of cal king influence, there are no calking populations near this population, nor do they exhibit any calking qualities.

To better think about this, the only reason you say calking influence is calkings are to the west and this king is not exactly splendida. You do not use any real evidence that what you say has occured is occurring or occurred in the recent or distant past. You merely state it for no real reason having to do with this snake, you state it with your captive knowledge.

Many of you forget, that a wild snake is a product of two very strong controls, one is genetics(what you understand) the other is far more important, local selection. Selection has direct control over what survives in a local area, selection controls the past and the future of what a snake appears to be. Genetics is a base, not a control. Genetics supports selection and tries to keep up. If it fails to keep up, these populations disappear, if genetics succeeds, that is offers types that succeed, that population stays and progresses. Neither genetics or selection is static, but instead constantly changing.

As a hobbyist, I understand its your only common thread, as a biologist or field monkey, I understand this population is unique and more then likely a morph of its own, derived from splendida and modified by isolation(time and selection)

As a captive kingsnake expert, you only have captive evidence to go by, not the real evidence, that is, the snakes or population itself. When in fact, your comments are meaningless and this snake has all meaning. Please, understand, I do not mean to insinuate that you are bad or unknowledgeable, its merely your wrong by using the wrong set of evidence.

Now to be more accurate, on the other side of the mountains, there are indeed splendida types with Cal king influence(speedwayensis) These animals express not only pattern sharing, but include a direct route of connection. That is, the river basins that allow kingsnakes to dispurse thru our deserts(uninhabitatable habitat)Are in direct contact. Also, 100 years of farming(flood irrigation) has indeed caused artificial recent connections from the northwest of tucson, to the Tucson valley itself. The northwest/calking influence, connects the southern splendida influence, which migrate from the south thru the Santa Cruz river basin.

While that is absolutely in evidence, there are many many outlying disjunct populations that are unique to themselves. I hope you can grasp this concept. I believe its causing many of you confusion when identifying other kingsnake patterns. In other words, they do not have to be intergrades to express different or intermediate patterns. You really need more real evidence, not what it appears by what Osborne or Shore labels them. No offense to those fellas, great fellas they are. They are only examples.

Also one last thought, in the future, you may find thru the use of DNA, that many of these "different appearing kings" may indeed be different and will be discribed as new species. (I will put some coin on this, a bet)

Is any of the above relect or recent, it may indeed be recent due to the above mentioned farming, creatine new pathways and breaking down natural barriers. Or not. Thanks for listening to a veiw from the field side of kingsnakes, FR

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