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Well I have always thought that the same gene was responsible for the hypermelanistic Davis and Mendota california kingsnake...well I bred a male Davis male to a Mendota female and received 11 eggs....most are out with a couple still in the eggs.

Here they are....obviously pre-shed.

Kerby...

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Lonesome Valley Reptiles
www.lonesomevalleyreptiles.com
Specializing In California Kingsnakes

n/p
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11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.1 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus nasicus (W Hognose)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

Fat little sausages!
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Todd Hughes

Sometimes I think one ate another, they are so fat.

Kerby...
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Lonesome Valley Reptiles
www.lonesomevalleyreptiles.com
Specializing In California Kingsnakes

Interesting. Thanks for sharing your findings.

Kerby...
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Lonesome Valley Reptiles
www.lonesomevalleyreptiles.com
Specializing In California Kingsnakes

Congratulations! Nice to see some ANSWERS instead of more questions LOL

And lots more to come in the next few years.

Kerby...
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Lonesome Valley Reptiles
www.lonesomevalleyreptiles.com
Specializing In California Kingsnakes

Whatever result you were hoping for that pairing produced a very nice clutch.

reako45

I thought it was the same gene....but if not then they should have been normal looking double hets.

Mystery solved.

Kerby...
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Lonesome Valley Reptiles
www.lonesomevalleyreptiles.com
Specializing In California Kingsnakes

Nice job! They look great too.

Now is the Baja the same?

I already know that IT IS the gene that produces Blizzards along with albino.

Kerby...
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Lonesome Valley Reptiles
www.lonesomevalleyreptiles.com
Specializing In California Kingsnakes

**I already know that IT IS the gene that produces Blizzards along with albino.**

Mendota/Davis that is.

Kerby...
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Lonesome Valley Reptiles
www.lonesomevalleyreptiles.com
Specializing In California Kingsnakes

I think the hypermelanistic Baja nitida/conjuncta will prove to be the same gene as the Davis/Mendota. the reason being that they all are naturally occuing and as far as I know all occur side by side with normal phase cal kings.
The real mystery to me is why does the hypermelanistic trait in Davis/Mendota appear to be linked to striped/abberrant patterns.

It is possible that there is more than one hyper gene but that they are allelic - one affecting pattern, one not.

Or perhaps the complex soup of cal king pattern genetics - the pattern genes in davis area are affected by the hyper gene in a non simple mendel way. We already know pattern is not simple mendel, so that is (I think) a reasonable possibility.
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11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.1 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
0.1 Heterodon nasicus nasicus (W Hognose)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

The males are more striped and the females have more banding.

On the high whites the best ones I've seen have been males.

On some traits it seems that the males are more intense.

Kerby...
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Lonesome Valley Reptiles
www.lonesomevalleyreptiles.com
Specializing In California Kingsnakes

"The males are more striped and the females have more banding."

So is this proven? I remember reading something about this a long time ago but it was disproved after they found btoh genders in both patterns. I didnt realise the ratios were favoured for one or the other though.

Just a thought - could it be related to incubation? I know leopard gecko colours can be affected by the temps theyre incubated at, and this affects their genders too so is it possible that something similar is happening to calis?

I really don't know what it is. Anything beyond simple recessive is almost too complicated for me. I can tell you that in the wild very, very few female striped/abberrant hypermelanistics have been found and it took a long time before anybody found one. On top of that very few people were breeding them and it took a long time before any female with striped/abberrants were hatched. For many years all of the females were banded but they did usually have solid black bellies with faint striping just on the underside of the tail and dark stripes behind the eyes. As a result people belived for a long time that males were always striped/abberrant and females were always banded.
Recently through the work of Kerby and Rick Staub we have seen quite a few female striped/abberrant hypermelanistics. Also there have been a few seen in the wild recently but I think it is only like 1 out of 30 or 40 females has been striped abberrant. So we know it is possible but we still don't know why it's not seen as frequently.