Reptile & Amphibian Forums

is there a real difference?

Well I don't know what that picture is of but to answer your question there is no difference except to hobbiests who want to keep the s dade county brooksi a seperate line from floridana.

Problem is everyone uses brooksi as a marketing tool. You cannot control what others do but most all of the snakes that you see called brooks kings are not from Dade Co.

Geez I have seen all sorts of mislabled and misrepresnted Florida kings on the internet lately. I have even had people try to chew prices down on my snakes because they see that someone else has the same snakes listed on the classifieds. Thing is they are not the same broook or Florida kings and people are stealing names and misrepresnting a lot of florida kings right now because they are on the rise in popularity in new morphs. I beleive the same things happened when the Ball Pythons came alonmg. Those same smelly rotten stinking bad people advertised and people got ripped off. The same thing is hanppening now with brooks king aka Florida kings.

The solution is post any questions on animals you see here before buying. A simple question like,,, is this really a XYZ Florida king or a true XYZ brooks king?

I hope that asking is a violation of Kingsnake terms of service, or is it?...

....Oh well! contact me Zenny , NokturnalTom or some of the other knowledgeable people that post here on a regular basis and i am sure we can help via private email if posting these questions here violate KS TOS..
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"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

Too bad that one didn't make it.. Hybino Cal?
On the Floridana..like Bluerosy says it's the hobbyists that keep them seperate but even then it's iffy.
So many have been bred in the past years..
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

the snake pictured is a ghost cal king that i produced last year. this years baby will blow those babies away my camera is damaged so i havent been able to take pics of them.

All brooksi are floridana, but not all floridana are brooksi. Brooksi is a now defunct subspecies which included light colored kingsnakes from Dade, Monroe, Broward, and Collier Counties.

You could call the first snake pictured a floridana, or a brooksi, but the last one could only rightfully be called a floridana. Funny thing is, I've seen kings darker than the one on the bottom sold as brooksi. Usually they're het for this or that, and they're being called brooksi because either the seller is ignorant, or wants to use the term because its more profitable than floridana.

This is how Conant described brooksi in his '58 field guide:

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Palest of the large Kingsnakes. Each individual dorsal scale is yellowish or cream-colored at base and brown at apex. Indications of light crosslines are sometimes present, especially in neck region. Belly is cream to pale yellow with spots of tan or pinkish brown.
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Hope that helps.
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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)

I like his use of the word pale here.
As in "cream to pale yellow"....
That's how I remember them. Never bright yellow at all.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

Anyone I spoke too in recent years agrees. High Yellow was not exactly a Brooksi trait, funny how it seems it apparently was the opposite? Now the hobby refers to high yellows as Brooksi, and there's no turning back. To re-name things almost never catches on....so I guess high band counts and nice colors equal Brooksi these days. This is what I initially thought be it wrong or right, and I think that's the way it will probably stay.
If you had the best text book pale yellows now people probably wouldn't pay more than $30 bucks for em......weird huh?
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

“Dwarf Brooksi”

I knew that would catch peoples eye!

To the best of my knowledge there is no such thing. However you just might be seeing this as a whole new morph in the years to come. Of course it wouldn’t be true.

I’m not an expert, big time breeder or old time hunter. I’m just a guy who grew up in Central FL. Got hooked on snakes in 1986 and one of my favorite snakes was the FL. king. I was lucky enough to hang out in some of the best (at the time) reptile/ pet shops. Probably up until the very early 90’s I saw kings come in from S. FL. by the bag loads. At the time the “popular” FL. king was a high yellow Floridana. “Brooksi” was being merged into Floridana along with “Goini”.

The market was ripe. People had to have these high yellow "BROOKSI". Only problem was if they didn’t carry the name “Brooksi” they weren’t as desirable, so every high yellow was called "BROOKSI". This was around the time pet shops started calling common Columbian boas “Columbian Redtails” for an extra $15 - $25(sorry to get off the subject or offend boa people).

A lot of beautiful FL kings were dying off in these pet shops or wholesalers because they weren’t high yellow, large bodied, 5 foot plus animals.

From experience, not field experience, just experience seeing a lot of FL kings. I have only seen a handle full of true Brooksi. In the forums here I have yet to see a picture of what I remember as a true “normal” Brooksi.

TRUE Brooksi, come from a very small locale. They are not high yellow (they had white flecks but some of the most perfect bands), males seem to not exceed 4 foot in length and to the best of my knowledge they were not hardy W/C feeders and didn’t yelled large egg clutches, babies did not have red or orange on the sides and a adult would look more like a yearling because their heads were much smaller for life. I haven’t seen a TRUE W/C looking Brooksi since maybe the second in Orlando.

Thank you,
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B

I've asked many times for pix of a "brooks" and usually get pix of very nice light snakes but not what I was looking for.

One of my FL kings

P.Lindsay's

my brother to above as a hatchling

Good luck finding some.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

Mark,

It doesn't matter if anything is true "Brooksi". The sad thing is that not many people read these posts or if they do, what they are looking for is pages away and they don't have the time to go further to check.

Brooksi is the NEW Floridana.
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B

Maybe you're right.Like I said, I'm lazy.
I am aware of the name/status changes believe it or not.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

I don't know............
Original '93 female.

Offspring from '02.

And although, this girl had mix recessives, I think she's a very classic brooksi looking animal......and she was VERY VERY LARGE! Last clutch was 25 HUGE eggs.

Who knows? I don't think anyone knows for sure anymore, but we all sure do like to speculate. I do know this, they are all beautiful snake!

Brandon Osborne

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www.brandonosbornereptiles.com