Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here is a new acquisition.

Long Beach (Grease King) male.

I was going to get a pair but they all ended up males...so I will get a female next year from the breeder.

Kerby...

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

Very nice, Kerby. I like the look of that King. Just wondering, do the Kings from Baldwin Hills (in L.A.) look similar? Have you ever seen one? I've found a spot that looks like it might be good to see some.

reako45

You have a very good chance of finding one there. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I wouldn't mention any LA locals on the forum. If you set up boards at any city you mention, I know at least 5 guys that regularly read these forums that will look your city up on google earth and find them. Most cities in LA. Co. have only a few areas with natural habitat left that harbor snakes. All they have to do is check out each spot and they'll find your boards. The area you mentioned is already known anyway, but if you find a new spot, I wouldn't post the name. If you want any more info on this send me a PM on FHF. Talk to you later.

Sexy!

>>Here is a new acquisition.
>>
>>Long Beach (Grease King) male.
>>
>>I was going to get a pair but they all ended up males...so I will get a female next year from the breeder.
>>
>>Kerby...
>>
>>-----
>>Lonesome Valley Reptiles
>>www.lonesomevalleyreptiles.com
>>Specializing In California Kingsnakes
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Life moves pretty fast, if you dont stop and look around once and a while,... you could miss it.

But...

Is it a Morph... looks like a Melanistic I saw in my 1st "Kingsnake handbook"...

Very cool looking snake either way!

~ZF
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Comprehend better than MOST... but i'm NOT claiming to be an expert...

There have been other threads on these in the past.

I personally do not herp in California, so I can't talk about exactly where they are found.

The person I got them from has the parents which are wild-caughts. Some were more banded than others and some were extremely dark (which is what I'm after).

I do not believe it is a simple recessive gene, but rather just variable.

He brought over three (was supposed to be 1.2), but ended up being 3.0, so I only got one male. I will be getting a female next year.

He almost looks axanthic/anery (bluish)...but I'm sure that change as he gets older.

Others on here have participated in the Long Beach Cal Kings threads in the past...maybe they will chime in.

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

Your from AZ, Paul is from AZ, he had all males, you must have got that one from him. LOL Those snakes are much more than just variation among the normal kings from the area.

That's cool. The fact that there isn't much habitat left in the wild for those guys makes it an even neater aquisition.

If this is a rare morph, then perhaps we need more people to breed it so to reduce presure on all ready precarious populations (making it widely availible to the captive herp market, or to possibly release hatchlings back into the wild? As hobbyists, we can have a positive impact as well as a potentialy negative one. As an orchid grower- besides my love of snakes- the orchid growing community has been working on growing and producing seedlings of extreemly rare species from seed pods collected in the wild and germinating the seeds and then going back to their origin and re establishing plants. The example that comes to mind is the species Paphiopedilum rothschildianum- perhaps the holy grail plant for many orchidists to grow and flower. It only grows on two population sites on Mt. Kinabalu in Borneo. Desipte that, it has been so widly propigated in captivity- you can now get good sized seedlings for as little as 35$ vs 2,000 for a mature plant 25 years ago. There have been resoably succesfull attempts at re introducing plants back on the Mt. Perhaps we could do this with rare kingsnake morphs such as the one you all are talking about?

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125 Orchid plants
20 other tropical plants and succulents
12 Bonsai Trees
28 Tarantulas & 1 Androctonus Scorpion
6 Planted Freshwater Tanks
1.1 Kankakee Bulls
1.0 Texas Red Bull
0.1 Kansas Yellow Bull
1.1 Costal Chocolate Cal Kings

From what I hear, there's already an effort being made to relocate these snakes to a safe area near by. The field the majority have been found in LB, is supposed to be developed soon but they've been saying this for the past few years and nothing has happened yet. There's very little interest in this morph compared to others, so I imagine the pressures on wild populations are minimal. There's still quit a few isolated patches of habitat unsuitable for development within their range.