Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone know of a good key, preferably online. I have on two occasions purchased 'mountain kingsnakes' 1.1 on one occasion, and 0.2 on another. Now that they are older I've put them together, just to notice that they might not be the same type of snake. The differences are minor, and I'm not sure if its just interspecific variation, or what. The scalation on the head (around the eyes) may be different too. Please help.

Can you post pictures??

how do I do that without a URl? I took some photos, uploaded them, and don't know where to go from here.

I opened a account on photobucket..it's free..from there you can start a album with your picks and it gives you the image url to copy and paste below
-----
Richard Evans

no not THAT one

here's a pic of all 4. There are 1.3. Two were purchased on one occasion, and two on another. The scalation on the head, aswell as the amount of black vary. I'll post head pics too.
Link

sorry moderators.. new to this forum

All 4 of those are definately Arizona Mountain Kings (Lampropeltis pyromelana pyromelana). The white snout is a key feature distinguishing them from L. zonata, which always have black snouts. There are probably scale counts that would rule out L. mexicana, L. ruthveni and L. triangulum but I can easily tell they are not those just by head and body shape.

There is another subspecies of L. pyromelana called L. p. knoblochi but L. p. knoblochi have narrower white bands which connect on the sides to form a chain-like pattern.

L. p. woodeni and L. p. infralabialis are also subspecies of L. pyromelana but woodeni is now considered invalid and infralabialis is very rare in the hobby because they are protected in their home range of Utah. Many people also consider infralabialis invalid too.

.
Link

All of them are Pyro Pyros (Arizona Mtn Kings). Here is one of mine. This site below has kings and milks. Ours have more black than this website. Derek

http://www.pitt.edu/~mcs2/herp/Lampropeltis.html

thanks

http://www.pitt.edu/~mcs2/herp/Lampropeltis.html

Copy and paste into your browser.

I think these are pyro pyro, but I've seen some zonata that look similar from photos. Idealy I would like to find a key, but any expereinced insight would be appreciated aswell.

ps. Is there no such thing as 'thelampropeltispage.com'?... there should be one no?

Image

Here's another snake in my collection I'd like to have verified. Its a bit more uncommon than pyro pyro, and It'd be reasuring to see that a consensis can be made by herpers more familiar with these snakes than myself, without using a key, only having photos.
Thanks in advance for all your replies. Appreciated up here in the cold north where we only have easters as far as milks go.

here's a headshot

looks like an agalma mt king to me.

look like Baja mtn king or some mix thereof. The head shape is very unlike most Ariz mtn kings or Chihuahua mtn kings in my opinion. The red on the head is a Baja mtn king trait. It can also be a Chihuahua mtn king trait depending on parentage. It can also arise from mexicana king or ruthven's king influence when these are crossed into other mtn kings.

The group shot below are Arizona Mtn kings.

I've seen captive Calif or Baja mtn king crosses that are tough to decipher, other than that they are not wild types.

That looks like a Baja for sure. I used to have a breeding trio and seeing that pic makes me want to get them again. Nice looking snake by the way !
-----
Big Jack Bronson

That's a Baja Mtn. King (Lampropeltis zonata agalma). Red blotching on the head is common in agalma and if you look carefully the tip of the snout is still black as in all zonata subspecies.
There is a very slight chance it could be a Coastal Mtn. King (L. z. multifaciata) as they also commonly have a red blotch on the head but it is not usually as prominent as in agalma. The books "Kingsnakes and Milksnakes" (the large 9"x11" hardcover not the smaller paperback of the same name) by Ron Markel and "Zonata" by Mitch Mulks both have good keys to the subspecies of zonata. Plus agalma are alot more common in the hobby than multifasciata and I've seen alot of both and my instincts, for what it's worth are telling me agalma.

I agree with Aaron. L. z. multifaciata is very hard to find in the hobby. Most likely an algama.

Good call!
San Pedro aka. Algama mountain king is what it was sold to me as. Thanks everyone for your input.
Tom
ps. this snake is super dopey. Can't hunt live prey, but will eat right out of hand. Pretty slow and moves a bit funny. Any ideas on what might be wrong with him? Or is he just a dopey snake? Thats what I thought but lately he's been getting worse and having equillibrium problems. Look at the pic of him in the water bowl. His head does a loop and he's been found lately in his hide pressed on his side. WIERD

That could be very bad. It sounds like it might be "zonata disease". I don't know much about it except that it causes equilibrium problems and stuck on sheds and is usually fatal and there is no cure. It is very contagious to other zonatas but apparently does not affect other species, however there is one case of a pyro possibly getting it. Since so little is known about this disease extreme caution and strict quarentine is recommended. Very rarely the snake can overcome it on it's own but it is not known if they will continue to carry the disease.

I've seen the diesease in Zonatas, and had not heard of it affecting any other ssp of lampros-(so the possible pyro thing is interesting), but when I first saw your pic of it in the bowl, I thought "looks like its got the disease", and what you described nails it. Through out any of this time, has the skin gotten rough looking, and the eyes like you rubbed sand paper over them..?, it will probably come, and like Aaron said, no cure, big bummer. I had a long time pet of over 8 years old get it in late '03, I was bummed. Good luck, keep it warm. They eat fine still, and will even breed-(from what I hear) but either way, it still sucks,
jeff

The part about a pyro possibly getting it was from a Reptiles magazine I believe and the article was real short, just one of those little 2 or 3 paragraph blurbs they put in the colored boxes. It didn't really go into any detail just said that possibly there was one case of a pyro getting it that was kept near zonata with it.