Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here's an interesting-looking Florida King from the sugar cane fields on the southwest side of Lake Okeechobee -- I'm going to try and breed him to (hopefully) eventually get a completely spotted snake (like the area immediately behind his head):

And here's an overview showing the comparison with a typical Florida King (hopefully his "girlfriend" but no luck yet!) -- sorry it's a little blurry but you can see the basic difference:

Tim
Sarasota, FL

I was a commercial collector for six or seven years and seen many from locals like cleweston and moore haven and south bay and just in cleweston I've seen black kings with gold cross bars, chocolate and butter colored, and tan and green phases and also the numbers of crossbars go from 35 -70 and even seen some with no apperant pattern at all. so I hope this info doesn't burst your bubble friend but there ya have it...JB

....found last year down there
with almost a "patternless" or "stripe look"

:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

Mark,

Thanks for the picture (and thanks for the input, JB). No issue with "bursting my bubble" -- I typically only get down to the Okeechobee area 4 or 5 times during the March/April breeding season and it is not unusual at all to only see one snake during an all-day excursion (or sometimes none!). I have been involved with a Florida kingsnake survey there for several years and there were days when our team of 4 people only found one or two snakes (so I most definitely have not seen that many patterns/types -- although JB's input is most interesting in regard to the potential for multiple variations).

Here is one of the nicest ones I saw down there two years ago -- this is a 60" male also from the Clewiston/SW side (actually very close to where the "aberrant" one was found) -- and it looked to be ready to shed when this picture was taken so I'm thinking it was even lighter/brighter afterwards:

Mark & JB -- I would really like to see any additional pictures you may have of nice and/or unusual Florida kings from the Lake "O" area or elsewhere in Florida...

Tim

PS -- how do I get the "real" IMAGE icon in my title block?

seen last year

and a big one seen in Jan.


:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

Thats a nice chocolate and butter phase and very nice head too...JB oh and I know places in clewiston where in feb I've seen 11 in one day and two big orange yellorats too ...

Mark,

This big male (approx. 5') and looks like it could be one of the same ones you saw! (lol) This was one the biggest one we have found, to date, based on girth as opposed to (strictly) length (we have found several other 5' males), and it was on the east side of 27 south of South Bay:

And Mark or JB, if you are interested in getting together down there sometime, please let me know.

Tim

"And Mark or JB, if you are interested in getting together down there sometime, please let me know."

Right..and should I bring a rubber snake to pose?? haha. You had me guessin' with that one above.
Guess I was being a little too polite when I said," ...nice snake"
May come down in a few weeks, I dunno.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

Dont forget that these animals vary quite a bit...