Reptile & Amphibian Forums

...photos courtesy of Bill Woods; his wife came across this in an abandoned well field in Pasco Co. (north of Tampa). Pretty wild to happen upon this in person! Check out how deeply the fangs are buried in the Eastern!!

BTW Zee and Hillson, doesn't this Eastern have a pattern like that big GA boy Zee now has?!

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Peace.

-John

I would say that is a fairly typical peninsula intergrade king.
That is maybe the 3rd or 4th account I've heard of within a year of the very same thing. 2 others were in Pinellas county.
Thanks for the pics!
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

Depends on what you mean by a penisular intergrade; some consider the "classic" many-banded, mahogany-yellow floridana to be typical. The one I caught like what I just described from October 2000 was snagged in Polk County about 60 miles to the east and nearly the same latitude. The intergrade in the pic I posted is more characteristic of those snakes found along west-central penisula...in fact I would say the snake I caught is much more common than the one in the photo I posted.

I've yet to see an wc Eastern of that pattern and color (the one in my post) from say the Brevard County (on the east coast) area.

I also don't know where too many kingsnakes from Pinellas County can be found seeing as how that's one of the most completely developed counties of all the Gulf Coast counties in the entire state of Florida.

-John

>>I would say that is a fairly typical peninsula intergrade king.
>> That is maybe the 3rd or 4th account I've heard of within a year of the very same thing. 2 others were in Pinellas county.
>> Thanks for the pics!
>>:Mark
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>>Surrender Dorothy!
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>>www.crimsonking.funtigo.com
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Peace.

-John

of your Polk County animal?

The king you're calling an eastern is what us Floridians typically call a Florida king, and that one is actually a bit lighter than the others I've seen from Pasco. It isn't until you get as far north as Levy county before you start seeing pure easterns in FL.

Thanks for sharing... now you really have me wondering about where exactly this was. Kings have gotten pretty uncommon in this area.

I feel there are not pure easterns around where that one was found and the interband speckling seems to say "peninsula intergrade" to me. We always called any king we found a Florida king.lol!
Here's a 4-5 yr old pic of one from the Pinellas/Pasco line. What most anyone might call a "Pinellas" king. From a small possibly isolated population a friend found this male and a female under tin.

Here's a shot of another recent find courtesy of a park ranger actually less than 10 mi. from the male above.
I would call this a classic peninsula intergrade.

I'm still trying to get the most recent pic of the one devouring an edb in a different park. I just wish I could get the pics myself, you know??!!
And here's yet another pic of one from the same park seen last year by a friend (thanks Bob O')and sent to me.

I think I have some on my pic site below
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

....(another chance to re-post the same photos) here's a NC eastern

and a "Pinellas" king here in the foreground. If you look closely you can see the eastern above just behind the Pinellas and nearly out of the pic.

They may look similar but are different for sure, huh?
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

awesome shots! i myself would have to intervene(GASP!-i said that on the kingsnake forum??!).....lol.edb's need all the help they can get.but then i'd go buy a rodent for the king,or something like that,to be fair...not to nitpick-besides the point,really-but that's a florida king,hence the speckling on the saddles.but my point was just to say,kudos on cool pics,whoever took them,thanks for sharing.

I say that because for every 1 kingsnake I see in the wild I see 30 Diamondbacks! Don't get me wrong, I love D'Backs and have saved many, many from a certain roadkill death while inching their way across HY 65 through Appalachicola NF and from ignorant people who just want to kill ANY snake. But kings are becoming as scarce too...just ask Zee (Blueking) or anyone who's been herping kings for 10-20 years and they'll tell you the same.

With Easterns tin in an old ag field/farm is the best in north Florida/south Georgia...plain and simple. You can find them in rip rap, railroad posts used near small bridges, old buildings in rural areas around trashy ass people's homes and in salt marshes etc, but these areas are disappearing too so I worry about the wild status of Eastern Kings in Florida as much as EDB.

But hey...I'm biased dude! Actually I hate to see even black racers wacked on the roadside - just another example of a herp pushed out of its home in most cases!

-John

>>awesome shots! i myself would have to intervene(GASP!-i said that on the kingsnake forum??!).....lol.edb's need all the help they can get.but then i'd go buy a rodent for the king,or something like that,to be fair...not to nitpick-besides the point,really-but that's a florida king,hence the speckling on the saddles.but my point was just to say,kudos on cool pics,whoever took them,thanks for sharing.
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Peace.

-John

maybe getting between an edb and a hungry king,or an edb and anything for that matter,might just be a little dicey,lol

Hi there, John! WOW! Awesome pics! Yes, that (Eastern) DOES look very similar to "Georgia Boy"! He has that "Suwannee look" about him. . . (Here's a pic of a baby Pinellas county, eastern king)

Zee

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"I am an expert on everything, but I know so little and have so much to learn!" -Carsten "Zee" Zoldy-

Thats an awesome display of nature at its finest.

Keith
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The Florida kingsnake had not eaten in weeks due to the passsing cold front that kept sunshine and temperatures at a minimum. He slid forward towards the taste of rattlesnake. Each flick of his tongue drew in the rattlesnake scent molecules. Scent receptors on the roof of his mouth processed the odors. His forked tongue allowed him to steer straight for the hidden eastern diamondback rattlesnake. His upwind approach left the rattler unaware of its pending danger. The motionless rattlesnake slowly came into the king's view. Readying for the upcoming strike, the kingsnake slowly drew its body into tight "S" shaped curves as it loaded its body into a tense spring. In a blur the kingsnake struck out and bit the rattler mid-body. Using its needle sharp rear curved teeth the king grabbed the rattler. With a firm grasp on the thrashing venomous snake the king looped coil after coil around the helpless rattlesnake.

Falling back on its most powerful weapon, the rattlesnake struck at the kingsnake sinking both fangs into the aggressive serpent. With both fangs buried in the kingsnake the rattler emptied her swollen venom glands into the kingsnake. Like hypodermic needles, her fang delivery system injected the clear venom straight into the kingsnakes body cavity. She used all of her venom, enough to kill a human. The kingsnake kept squeezing and squeezing. The rattler struggled against the ever tightening coils with each exhale the kingsnake drew tighter preventing inhalation. Thirty minutes after the catching the first scent of the rattlesnake the kingsnake was re-hinging its jaws as it finished swallowing the young diamondback. The fight was over before it started. The venomous weapon of the eastern diamond back rattlesnake is completely useless on the immune kingsnake.

Nice series of photos.
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Bob Bull
1.3 L.g.getula MD Locality
3.3 L.g.g GA locality
2.3 L.g.g albino
1.4 L.g.g het albino
1.2 L.g.g P-het albino
1.0 L.g.floridana peanutbutter
0.2 L.g.f. het peanutbutter
1.0 L.g.f. N.E. axanthic
1.0 L.g.nigrita
1.1 L.t.hondurensis het hypo-melanistic
0.1 L.t.hondurensis hypo-melanistic

unlike the stuff you saw on "Wild America"...

www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1594/is_n3_v8/ai_19998020
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

You mean they were tank shots? I'm soooo bummed out . Dang, strike another hero off the list.... I'm sure he would have used a natural encouter if he ever found one.

I was just going for cheesey!!!!
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Bob Bull
1.3 L.g.getula MD Locality
3.3 L.g.g GA locality
2.3 L.g.g albino
1.4 L.g.g het albino
1.2 L.g.g P-het albino
1.0 L.g.floridana peanutbutter
0.2 L.g.f. het peanutbutter
1.0 L.g.f. N.E. axanthic
1.0 L.g.nigrita
1.1 L.t.hondurensis het hypo-melanistic
0.1 L.t.hondurensis hypo-melanistic

...while Jim tries to grab the rattlesnake's tail and I narrate from a safe distance...it's a good time to evaluate your family's emergency financial plan.
okay, so I'm old enough to have grown up with Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom

N/P

...all that new-fangled color TV stuff anyway??
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com