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Am I correct in thinking the striped pattern (or for that matter banded or any other pattern) in cal kings is not genetically inherited in an easily predictable manner, but functions more like a line-bred trait? For example, if a banded is bred to a striped, do you get stripes, bands, and aberrant patterns in the first generation of offspring? Thanks in advance for any answers.

You are correct, striping in cal kings IS NOT simple recessive....and will show up in your first breeding....and if you breed a banded to a stripe, you COULD get some bandeds, some stripes (partial stripes), and some aberrants.

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

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Its not exactly or even like whats being said here. With wild caught snakes its much different then with these captive types.

I was a pioneer in breeding Cal kings. Which means, I created many of the captive morphs that are now being bred.

With San Diego Stripes, if you bred them to San Diego bandeds, you will normally recieve stripes, and bandeds, with very few in any abberants. If you breed these offspring together, you will recieve more abberants. The more you breed the generations together, the more it becomes even, or co-dominate(equal chance of occurring) Like Kerby discribed.

If you take a WC San Diego striper and breed it with a WC NorCal banded, you get all abberants. And these offspring will normally always produce abberants.

What this means is, Where stripes and banded kings occur in the same area, they must have either or both, a genetic or behavioral barriers to keep them in exsistance. If not, they would all be one type or abberants. Clearly that has not occurred, as there are still both bandeds and Stripes in San Diego county.

It also means there are regions of calkings, that have totally different genetic makeup and history.

So Kerby is right, most likely with longterm captives, you will recieve what he says. But if you used wildcaught animals, you would not.

Ignored in all this, is another area of genetics. Genetics also controlls behavior. Outbreeding and crossbreedings, dilutes behavior.(which makes for great captives)

For instance, where two types of kings occur in one area, they normally do not interbreed. They normally have genetic barriers to prevent this. It does occur, but so very rarely.

Genetic behavior also controls what other animals they are attracted too. This could mean color and pattern as well as pheromone attraction.

In the very old days, biologists thought that it was simply physical. As in, hemipenes did not match up or they were genetic mismatches. From my early work with crosses and the massive experience seen now days, its clearly understood, that they can indeed physically cross with other kings, even ratsnakes or pits.

In nature, they don't, which breaks it down to behavior. Remember, behavior is genetic too.

Again in captivity, we break down their natural behaviors, so cross breeding is commonplace. Just food for thought, Cheers

FR, I'm glad you cleared a few things up. I'm mainly a field herper and have talked to several herpers from S.D. Co. (including Hubbs) and from what I've been told, aberrants are not found very often in the wild. Not as much as we see in Captive Cal kings but that's because the locals are mixed up in captivity. I hunted S.D. last spring and was able to find around 10 kings during my visits and all were either striped or banded. A friend of mine has board lines all over coastal S.D. and still has not found an aberrant in 4 years. There is one area known to produce more aberrants than other places but it's near the area where the Newports are replaced by the stripers, maybe that has something to do with it.

Where we found the most abberants were from Tecmecula to north of Elsinore and a little to the east. Some were totally out of hand. Ok, let me mention one. The weirdest one had the batman marking behind the head, and the rest of the snake was brown dashes in no particular pattern over the whole snake.

Of course the normal abberant was stripes and banded on the neck, banded in the middle, and striped on the last third. These were somewhat common in the areas we hunted.

What is very weird, I went back to one of the places I commonly hunted. After twentyfive years, and guess what, I found a perfect striper. Consider I have previously hunted that area for a decade and never found a striper. Cheers

That's very interesting because I've just started hunting that area recently and have found 4 striped/aberrants in that area.

This snake was found by someone else and I suspect it might come from that area as well. Does this look like any aberrants you've seen in the area???

You ought to look at this paper.

Paul Hollander
Zweifel - Genetics of color pattern polymorphism i

I've read 2 of Zweifel's papers on cal king polymorphism, and there is interesting stuff in each, but the complexity of cal king morphs is much more extreme than what he depicted in 1981. We have a lot more information now that demonstrates how many of these patterns are related to each other within certain ranges. There are curerently 5 different morphs related to Zweifel's Long Beach morph, and 6 others (including Zweifel's "Whittier" in Los Angeles County alone. See my upcoming book for the current "take" on wild morphs from So-cal and elsewhere.

Brian Hubbs (aka Mr. Cal King Expert type person, ahem)

Hi Mr. Expert, I was thinking about the pics you showed me the other day. You know, the newporters.

There is a problem with your pics. They are current, which is different from what we saw in the 60's to 70's. What we called newporters is not what you call newporters. So, we have two distint possibilities. One is, we collected ours in a different area. And two, that pattern has migrated to a slighly different pattern over the last four or so decades. My thoughts are, they have migrated. As I have seen that in many populations over the years.

This is something that seperates books from the real world. These snakes are constantly changing, and the books don't want to recognize that.

Also, I went to several of Zwi's talks in the 80's and unfortunately, he has made a mountain out of a mole hill. While he did work with kings, look at his address, BACK EAST. To make it simple, there was too much distance between him and his subject. He was not even current back then. Not in captivity or in the field. Please understand, hes a great guy, its not about that. As you mentioned, a simple lack of what is really out there.

To change the subject, I was out in the field today. I was in the area where those black kings were found. We found one black dor. Also, I do have a king here found from that same area. This one was hit on the head and I brought it home to recoup it. Its Ok now. I guess I ought to take a pic for you, hey?

Hopefully if we get some winter rain, kings should be abundant next spring, as we got good summer rains. Particularly the area of the black kings. Cheers

Nice Barred morph Ross! heh, heh.

It's about time you've started posting somewhere Brian. Hurry up with that book!!!!! LOL

O.K. I get it, Mr. Hubbs is now FR.

>>O.K. I get it, Mr. Hubbs is now FR.

No, we know all about Hubbsquatch too!

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http://www.hcu-tx.org

Hey, that looks like Mike Brady. No, Ross, I'm not Frank Retes (FR).

Hey, I am shorter and better looking, hmmmmmmmmmmm And, I actually know what I am doing. Darn, I went to paint numbers today and painted my shoe.

That Hubbs fella is so tall when he falls over(a common occurance) he has reruns on his life. Cheers

O.K. I thought you were going undercover since KW & Pollyana scared you off the other sight. Yeah, I finally figured out why you stopped posting. Your sick and tired of the whole thing.

LMAO! I saw that guy looking for kings once, and today I get a call from a Mr. Hubbsquatch!!! Wow, small world! Is that a pry bar in its' hand, lol!

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Todd Hughes