Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Bart and others, here are those pics I mentioned. The mother was a WC gravid female found down in the canefields in March 2004.

8 eggs were laid of which 6 hatched out, all females and 2 aberrants.

First aberrant:

2nd aberrant with normal looking sibling:

Now I wait and sit back to see all the comments on how "goini" was probably introduced either in captivity or in the wild where people have released them in the canefields. Or somehow that the range of "goini" is not too far away to have had some influence. LOL

Wow... Interesting!
With a fairly large amount of breeders all concentrated in the southern half of Florida (form Orlando on south) anything is possible....?!?!?!? Of course I'm mainly speaking of "rookie" breeders and/or first time pet owners. I keep hearing and seeing on the news of so many released, unwanted reptile pets in S. Florida (ie. Burmese pythons, Retics, Anacondas, monitors etc. etc.)
At least here in my area (of NC) snake breeders are rare and so are alien reptiles in the wild - havn't heard (or seen) of one yet (thank God), lol! Of course it helps to A): have some cold temps in the winter to kill off (most) possible alien reptiles. AND B): live in a state that is not as crowded as Florida!!!!
Ok enough raving on that issue... Back to your snakes: They are very nice and quite interesting. No way of telling (100%) if that "wildcaught" mother really is wildcaught or just someones' "ugly" het (from a brooksi x goini project) that took up too much room and was dumped back into the wild by a well-meaning individual... Of course there are still plenty of "pure" wildcaughts left, so I would just hold onto those babies and see how they turn out. WHO KNOWS??? I would guess that your snake (by the way she looks), is a legit wildcaught, that's just my .3 cents... (Her pattern and colors all point to it).
Thanks for sharing, though & keep us/me posted!

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-

I guess anything is possible in S Florida. Those aberrants could be FL King X Burmese hybrids for all we know right.

An adult aberrant from the same general area.
:Mark

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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

Mark, Is that a WC you found? Interesting looking King.

Looks like it's got the same broken pattern as some of the hypo brooksi line.

Those first three photos you labeled 'first aberrant' are really great photos.

That is all I have to contribute to this discussion.

Now I wait and sit back to see all the comments on how "goini" was probably introduced either in captivity or in the wild where people have released them in the canefields. Or somehow that the range of "goini" is not too far away to have had some influence. LOL

its obvious to me at least the mother has some lgg in her because of the color and band count. and being i feel goini IS lgg there ya go so either you are the lotto snake hunter that discovers entirely new ssp. and bases what it is on county line range maps rather than visual deductive evidence or you are simply trying to start an arguement as the picture at least to me says it all,,,,,,,,thomas davis

VARIATION. I suggest almost any east coast king can produce almost any variation that LOOKS different,like any ssp.... It makes sense, its just more LIKELY to occur in some areas than others. We can understand how some populations favor certain colors and patterns cant we? I think we can also understand how some areas favor VARIATION itself,right? To me it would make sense that along the "borders" of suggest ssp locales would be some of these. It makes sense that relic populations hold greater variability as well....they likely have more individuals in a small area. I will go one step further to say that kings are bigger, and travel exponentially further than milks.....and milks are orders of magnitude more "inbred" than kings. If they travel less, and are more inbred, the genes "stack up", adding more dice and combinations to the mix. Just my 2 cents...Jeff

wtf?????????

Thats adult is probably one that Andy Barr released.

LOL! Just kidding. Nice neonate. Very lucky to have produced that. How does it look today?
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I don't need no spell chack.

Don't you mean D. Beard? He lived closer
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

See one of the posts below by Crimsonking as he put up a more recent pic of the first aberrant.

Sean, Beautiful animals and great photos. What were you thinking? I would've hung on to those! You really are a nazi getuala addict...only a goini will do

From the percentage, I would guess that that appearance is a recessive trait, I guess whoever has them now could prove that or disprove it. What I find amusing is that when it's benificial (i.e. releasing some captive produced goini back into the areas the parents came from/or some floridana back into Paynes Prairie) everyone is up in arms about how the babies won't survive and they quote the old attempts/failures at releasing couperi as a precedent. But no one questions that someones captive raised goini/flordiana cross could be dumped into the canefields and not only survive but start reproducing with the locals.

And before anyone mentions it yes I am fully aware of the chance that pathogens could be introduced into the wild populations as was done with Gopherus, which is another, very conciensious reason to use extreme care when re-introduction is considered. I am not referring to that aspect, the survivability is what I am confused about....

With Ball pythons and Cornsnakes there are over 30 and 50 (roughly) recognized heritable traits....why is so hard to believe that kingsnakes can't exhibit the same tendency?? Regardless of the distaste many have with all these "ugly" mutations the great majority of them came from the wild. Even two apparent combos have been found in the wild! Want to try and calculate those odds??? Southwest Florida is a hotspot for wild collected mutations in cornsnsnakes, why not the canefields for floridana? With the population there it would make sense. Wouldn't a large population in a static or shrinking habitat see a great deal of sibling breedings (the necessity for recessive traits to show themselves) Just a thought that makes more sense to me than the escapee or nefarious puposefully released intergrade theory.

Horridus@aol.com

With Ball pythons and Cornsnakes there are over 30 and 50 (roughly) recognized heritable traits....why is so hard to believe that kingsnakes can't exhibit the same tendency?? Regardless of the distaste many have with all these "ugly" mutations the great majority of them came from the wild. Even two apparent combos have been found in the wild! Want to try and calculate those odds??? Southwest Florida is a hotspot for wild collected mutations in cornsnsnakes, why not the canefields for floridana? With the population there it would make sense. Wouldn't a large population in a static or shrinking habitat see a great deal of sibling breedings (the necessity for recessive traits to show themselves) Just a thought that makes more sense

I agree with Horridus. The chances of this being a result of a captive release is very very slim. It is plausible but so is winning the lottery. In captivity sibling breeding over generations will produce abberancies so why not in the wild.
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I don't need no spell chack.

Thanks man! I'd get into this dicussion but I just wanted to post these pics again for you and others to see. If I remember correctly, there was alot of debate about these animals when I first posted them.

I don't think that the odds are that unfavorable at all when you consider how many reptiles there are in florida and how many herpers. Florida has literally dozens, possibly hundreds of introduced species that have established breeding colonies.

There are sooo many animal importers and breeders its not even funny. So you tell me which you think is more likely...

1) two highly rare recesive traits found in the same wild animal, when both traits reduce the ability of the animal (and its parents, who must have been double hets) to survive in the wild

or

2) One (or really more like dozens every day) of the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of cornsnakes bred by private breeders in florida managed to escape and be found by someone else.

Hmmmm

well I really doubt Sean's king is anything but a FL king from the area. Like I said, I think the variability is in all the kings just not as many survive mother nature's test.
That said, I have found two amel corns here in my neighborhood.. I had no amels prior so they're not mine! (well, they ARE NOW)
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

true

while i'm no expert on the whole brooksi/floridana/getula debate I think that there is a lot of variability in these snakes and these kings are certainly interesting.

I wouldn't rule out mixing of subspecies by human hands, but I also wouldn't rule out that natural color variations are likely. I find it funny that people argue about it since there is absolutely, positively, no possible way to find out which is the case. The snakes are there, they are pretty, they are fun to find, they are similar enough to native kings to have no negative effects on the ecosystem, so WHO CARES?

nuff said

Perhaps we should all just say "wow...that's pretty!" and leave it at that? And yes there is most certainly a way to tell, if the animal reproduces itself in a recessive or incomplete dominant manner than it had nothing to do with any intergrade, it's a genetic mutation. I don't feel like I am arguing with anyone, this forum is for the exchange of ideas....is it not? And since someone still has at least one of these animals and as far as I know intends to breed them, an answer is forthcoming. THAT is just as interesting to me as the unusual animals themselves "That" being the manner in which the appearance was inherited. All I did was throw out some of my opinions sorry if I offended anyone I have gained a different perspective on several topics due to reading others thoughts in here. I look forward to more information/photographs of the western species of Lampropeltis that I have little to no experience with other than as captives. I think Tony D stated it very well when he said "Actually I learn very little from aggreement. Discussing differing views is way more fruitful."

Horridus

Hey man, no hard feelings. I wasn't trying to accuse you of being argumentative, this thread has been informative and pretty tame. But this topic has been the source of some serious issues in the past.

Cheers

N/P

The double combo morphs were wild caught adult Ball Pythons found in Ghana or Togo, Africa, I don't think there are too many breeders there but I could be wrong. And I guess they could have, instead of selling the animal for the multi-thousands they commanded, just let them go and then they were subsequently captured by another trapper?... To the best of my knowledge there's never been a combo morph cornsnake found in the wild.

Horridus

...was the original Anerythristic Type B (AKA Charcoal) corn snake. Not only was it homozygous for Anery Type B, it was also het for Anery Type A. How weird is that?

(and something we have talked about before I think)...is that with all the hypo corns here and the anerys in some parts....why has there never been a ghost found??
Maybe there has. Does anyone really know?
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

That's a great point, remember when that one line of hypos were called Bradenton corns? Maybe some of those really light Anerys from in that area were actually ugly ghosts LOL. I had forgotten the original Anery B animal was het for Anery A...at the time it wasn't really thought to be that big a deal unless I am remembering it wrong, but that's amazing when you think about it. That's why I love corns (can't keep 'em) but man I love 'em! LOL Guess i'll have to get my genetic fix from my Ball Pythons.

The original patternless alterna, het anery alterna and het hypo alterna were all wild caught on the same six mile strech of road. The patternless appears to be a codominant morph and the hypo and anery have already been proven simple recessive.

Is the patternless the "super" of the co-dom morph or is there something else produced when two patternless are bred to each other? If it's the super...what does the visual het form look like? That's interesting about the locale. Thanks for the info.

Horridus

See Bart, It is when you spout crap like this that not only make sense but is also well thought out that I think to myself, "That dude is smart". LOL I agree with you here 100% and I also know of at least 3 different non compatible hypo corns that have been wc in Florida. None are as nice as the good cb lines but they are all hypo. Indian river Co. has 2 and Okeechobee Co, has 1 that I know of. Not one of the 3 produced hypos with my CB hypo male.

Sean those are obviously gopher king crosses man. LOL Hows the wc goini kings looking for this year??? Any babies expected??

Jason

Umm... strike that only 2 were female corns and one was male. So only 2 were non compatible. The wc male was also different than the females.

Jason

I would think that once populations become fragmented the likelihood that such anomalies pop up would increase greatly. Large populations tend to have a stabilizing influence on phenotype because the appearance of a new mutation is swamped by the dominant (common) genotype. In small populations the appearance of a mutation is a much more significant shift in gene frequency and it thus has a better chance to persist and eventually be collected or observed.

Very good points. The canefields is a very large area stretching hundreds of miles but it also makes me wonder how far the kings move around. From what I've heard, they don't move thru the fields much rather sticking to the canals. Anyone else know? DORs and live specimens have been found crossing the roads so I imagine they do move from canal to canal.

Looks like kings have been hitch-hiking on debris down the Apalachicola river, south through the Gulf of Mexico a couple hundred miles and upstream (!) through the Caloosahatchee River and breeding with Florida kings in the canefields. Strangely enough, this goini influence seems to express itself like a recessive gene. Who knows how many FL kings are het for goini down there?!

Darnit! I knew I should have kept those and sold them as Blase Phase aberrant Florida X non-locality traveling goin-meansi on your bad self Kings!

The mother doesn't look like she has much light tipping to the dark scales. Is that common for that area? Or is she young and the tipping might still increase? Just curious about those things and I will also say that simple crossing with a released getula should not give those babies a solid black belly so I think they've got to be a new morph of some sort.