Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am bored at work and wanted to know what is everyone’s favorite Lampropeltis? I know we love them all but if you had only one choice of snake to own/breed what would it be? Outside of Hondurans I would say I really like Gray Banded kings having never owned or held one I just love there beauty. Anyone else?
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Jason A.
"Long time Herper, first year Breeder `07."

MBK all the way.
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Diego

Diego & Tiffany's Zoo:
SNAKES
0.1.0 Boa Constrictor
1.2.0 Corn Snakes (Different morphs)
1.1.0 Hypo Everglades Rat Snakes
0.1.0 Amel Pacific Gopher Snake
2.1.0 Sonoran Gopher Snakes
0.1.0 Amel Sonoran Gopher Snake
1.1.0 Mexican Black Kingsnakes
1.1.0 California Kingsnake
3.2.0 Rosy Boas (Mexican, Temecula, & Bagdad)
1.1.0 Kenyan Sand Boas
0.1.0 Indonesian Dwarf Pacific Boa
1.1.0 Cape York Spotted Pythons
1.1.0 Western Hognoses
0.0.1 Lyre Snake
0.0.1 Glossy Snake
0.0.1 Shovelnose

LIZARDS
2.0.0 Bearded Dragons
1.0.0 African Fat-Tail Gecko
0.1.0 Merauke Blue Tongue Skink
1.4.2 Leopard Geckos
1.0.1 Yellow Niger Uromastyx
1.1.1 Chuckwalla
1.4.0 Banded Gecko
0.0.1 Gold Dust Day Gecko
1.1.3 Sandfish
2.0.0 Desert Iguanas

AMPHIBIANS
1.0.1 Green Tree Frogs
1.0.0 Bubbling Kassina
0.0.1 White's Tree Frog
0.0.2 Gold Frogs
1.0.0 Fire Salamander

You ain't kidding about that!

Third Eye

i like all the mole kings and i have a newly found love for brooksi. I have been eyeballing pyros as of late too.

Holbrooki w/ Cals, MBK's & Splendida running a close second! Of course this is subject to change @ any moment.

reako45

My '05 Speckled King, Yuki.

reako45

oops

Brooksi all the way!!! Just an overall great snake to work with. Good size, impressive, and specializing in rodent destruction!!! Can't beat em'.

Chris J.

Brooksi all the way
Easy to keep - Easy to breed - Many flavors to choose from
Just can't beat'em

Gosh that a tough one. Obviously i work exclusivly with Brooks kings because of their calm nature, size and tougness as captives. They are easist to feeed and don't crap on you like some kings do.

BUT tae out the above and i have a hard time deciding which are my favorites. Its like what is my favorite for keeping and ease of maintenance (hard to kill) is of course the florida kings. But I cannot decide over any of the others because thay aree all cool. Hard one to call unless you are more specific as to why a favorite king sis .

Best captive for ease of care (hard as nails and bullet proof) the florida kings.

locality sepcific kings- zonata, greybands

beauty and diversity- thayeri

cheapest $ and best bang for the buck- cal kings and MBK's

rare kings which a lot of people are not working with- N. american milks, moles.

Then there are the really cool mutations like the speckled whitesided (aka whitewall) kings an the ws eastern milk ect

ahhh the list goes on>>>>
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"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

goini and elapsoides.

I personally love Brooksi in any color. These are new babies from my hypo male and the het for hypo female I got from Tom Stevens...Helane in Austin

Well if it has to be 1 lampropeltis then it would have to be L.G.getuela. I've kept lots of lampropeltis before. ie. hundorans,calligaster,rhombaculata,mexicana,& knoblochi the only 4 lampropeltis that I like but didn't keep are gentalis,triangulum,elapsoides,& greeri.

Eastern Kings and especially the OBKs. Derek

Well, that is a hard question!! If I had one snake I could only own, I would own only bulls, pines, and gophers ( one of each! )

Kings are my second fave and honestly, it is beyond impossible for me to have any faves amidst the kings I have, as they are all equally loved:

Hi White cal king

Supposed BEB Het

Grayband

Splendida

Axanthic Splendida

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Genesis 1:1

Billy,
That GBK is AMAZING!

That thing doesn't even look real- colors are just JUMPING off!!!

VERY nice!

//Todd

Thanks Todd!!!! I really appreciate your comments!

Yeah, that was taken last year after I got him in Daytona. It was taken outdoors with natural light, and I will try to get some recent pics of him, as he looks better now than that.
John from Suncoast Herps has the best graybands I have ever seen, and I may be tempted next weekend in Daytona to get another one. Thing is, I gotta save room for pits!

Take care!

Billy
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Genesis 1:1

Awwwwww, man- WISH I was going to Daytona.

I'm here in San Diego right now, and we wont be back until late Saturday. (driving)

We shined high and low several weeks ago out west looking for some GBK, but no luck.

Let me know when you don't have any more 'room' for those guys, and I'll MAKE room for them!

I'll take some recent pics of that axanthic splendida I picked up from Don back in Feb and post when I return... she hasn't quite hit the infamous 'kingsnake growth-spurt' yet, because she's still REFUSING to eat anything that's not alive and kicking!

//Todd

" Let me know when you don't have any more 'room' for those guys, and I'll MAKE room for them! "

I will!!

Yeah, please take some pics of that axanthic splendida. You sure picked a good one!!!
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Genesis 1:1

If I had to choose.............
Hatchling '05


Yearling '06

Adult '07

Brandon Osborne
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www.brandonosbornereptiles.com

Brandon, That not even fair. You suck!
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"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

Listen to you! You don't have much room to talk man. You suck on so many levels. lol.

Brandon
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www.brandonosbornereptiles.com

Okay Brandon,
I don't know WHAT those are, and don't care.

However I do remember when you originally posted them, and have a scar on the bottom of my chin to prove it smashed my desk when I saw them the first time!

Hijo-le, man!

//Todd

>>If I had to choose.............
>>Hatchling '05
>>
>>
>>Yearling '06
>>
>>Adult '07
>>
>>
>>Brandon Osborne
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>>www.brandonosbornereptiles.com

Brandon,

That looks like some morph of a FL king what is it? That snakes is very nice looking!
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Jason A.
"Long time Herper, first year Breeder `07."

It's a long term project involving an ANERYTHRISTIC/AXANTHIC Brooksi and a semi-patternless Goini. No babies this year and only one other anery last year.

Thanks
Brandon Osborne
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www.brandonosbornereptiles.com

Eastern Kings over six feet like this one in the pic.
And Eastern kings with red/orange bands.
My goal is to have a seven footer one day (maybe with orange bands too) LOL!!!
But honestly I love all the getulas (almost as much as I do my Easterns)...After all:

Bigger IS better (and easier to feed)!

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-

Floridana/Brooksi Hands Down!

It's like opening a bag of skittles!

~ZF
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Royal ReptileZ

I love my Florida King. I'm new at the whole snake thing. But I have to say that this Alterna from the SierraHerps site is one stunning snake to me. For pure aesthetics, this might be not my favorite *type* of snake, but my favorite *actual* snake. Some other alternas don't strike me like this one, but this one rocks.
Alterna from SierraHerps site

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0.1 Lampropeltis Getula Floridana
1.0 Elaphe Guttata Slowinskii

Graybands definitly. The babies are hard to get started but they are so neat looking and variable and so fun to hunt for. Well they were fun to hunt for before HB12/2414 but hopefully that will change with HCU.
Zonatas are a close second with mexicana complex(Potosi, Durango & Nuevo Leons) third.

Huh
"Well they were fun to hunt for before HB12/2414 but hopefully that will change with HCU".

HB12/2414 is the new law that passed this year that makes it illegal to collect reptiles and amphibians from a public road or right of way in Texas. You cannot even walk on the shoulder and collect. Since Texas has no national forest or other public lands that allow herp collecting the only place you can do it now is on private property. HCU is Herp Conservation Unlimited, a new organization which was formed by herpers working on changing the law.

Thanks for that Aaron, good luck with the law,is it a safety issue or conservation effort?

There have been claims of both safety and conservation but neither are true. It is no more dangerous to walk the shoulder looking for herps than it is to jog, bike, look at flowers(a huge activity in the Hill Country), etc. all of which are legal. Conservation: the vast majority of commercial collecting is already done on private land, ie. trapping water turtles(food trade= 300,000) and gassing rattlesnake dens(84,000 for roundups). Most people who use the roads are after graybands, milks, subocs and rock rattlers and the roads literally represent less than 1% of the habitat available to those species. 99% of their habitat is either private land that is of little to no value for development or it is parkland and the herps are already protected. The law was snuck in by a few members of Texas Parks and Wildlife who have a well known bias against herpers and who found a state representative(Harvy Hilderbrand) who just happens to co-own a real estate bussiness and big hunting leases and would gain from forcing herpers to either buy or lease land.

...and handling many different L.mexicana,alterna,floridana,californiae,calligaster,zonata,and ruthveni I decided that my favorite is the one I'm holding.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

can't forget pyros either!
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

the king of kings LGG are my fave,,,,,,,,thomas davis

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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

Variability, relative rarity, and now morphs to work with(honestly I dont care if ssp morphs are pure--just what they look like!). And they keep getting BETTER! J