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I bought this snake as a "desert kingsnake" but it does not look like a splendida to me. I think it might be a florida kingsnake.

And one more question, what is this one?

Also a point of clarification, are "brooksi" and "floridana" the same? If I bred a "brooksi" to a "floridana," would they be intergrades, hybrids, or considered pure? How would you label the offspring? Thanks in advance for answering my inquiries.

id say both are florida kings the second looks like it maybe anerythristic. brooks are a color phase of florida kings mainly being hiyellow/white. most in the hobby breed for color and breeding a darker fla.like pictured to a brooks phase is kinda counterproductive but is in noway what i would consider a cross/hybrid,,,,,,,,thomas davis

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>>I bought this snake as a "desert kingsnake" but it does not look like a splendida to me. I think it might be a florida kingsnake.
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>>And one more question, what is this one?
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>>
>>Also a point of clarification, are "brooksi" and "floridana" the same? If I bred a "brooksi" to a "floridana," would they be intergrades, hybrids, or considered pure? How would you label the offspring? Thanks in advance for answering my inquiries.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Both are Florida kings. The second one looks like a anerythristic/axanthic. Anerythristic or axanthic is a term that can be used inerchangably. Anerythistic means lacking mostly red pigment and axanthic means lacking yellow pigment. Since floridana are both red-yellow-orange at different stages of their life the colors come from the same xantophores. Hence they can be used for the same thing. Hobbiest though have attached the term anerythitic for a darker florida king looking animal and the high yellow are labled axanthic.

Brooksi was done away with in nomenclature and lumped together with floridana. Originally the high yellow phase of florida kings known as "brooksi" came only from south florida. But you can find dark florida kings in the same region just as you can find light yellow florida kings further north from the old floridana range. Today the term brooksi is used by hobbiests as a sales term to denote a better looking flrida king but that is a stretch since the term is misused (a lot) to market the animals and not to confuse people between the two names . For instance if someone was adverticing a florida king and another a brooks king, the brooks will sell before the florida king because it a more attactive name even though they are the same thing. Now some hobbiests actually use the term "brooksi" correctly because the origina of the snake is directly from south florida stock .

Confused yet?
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"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

I wonder if anyone has tried bringing the floridana axanthic gene into amel cal king lines.
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3.6 L. getula californiae - 16 eggs (Cal. King)
1.1 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
3.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - 14 eggs (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

Thanks for the explanation. It is a lot clearer now.