Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just trying to refresh my knowledge of wild type Cal morhps. If I remember right (and please feel free to correct me if I am wrong - or argue amongst yourselves , striped pattern is dominant to rings, but rings seem to make up the majority of most populations. The purest white tends to be the more eastern and/or desert populations - I am guessing that means Arizona, southern Utah, Nevada and eastern Cal. The west coast varieties tend to vary from cream to yellow with varying degrees of black to chocolate brown; extreme yellow/brown varieties with abberrant patterns are found in Long beach/Newport. The baja races tend to be dark with the rings/stripes looking almost washed off. I am not sure what the locale is for the those specimens with broken lines/dots on their backs.

Any and all info is welcome and your responses are much appreciated.

A lot can be added to all that, but what's the question?

Brain Hubbs has done some great work with Ca Kings, worth looking into. Cal Kings can vary so much even in the same area's.

Coasatal Cal King Santa Monica area

Oh C##P, wrong King

The apove is a coastal king from the Santa Monica area

Yeah, I guess I should have said "Questions". The jist is, what morphs are naturally occurring where? What range and/or habitats did the yellow, cream or white colors come from and the stripes, dots, rings or abberrant patters? Any locale data is welcome.

I wouldn't mind helping you out, but that's just too much to answer. There really is too much there to discuss without writing a book here. lol Brian Hubbs is finishing up his book on Common kingsnakes, and will have all your answers in it. In the mean time you can check out this website that has a bunch of pictures of wild caught Cal kings from mostly me and Jeremiah Easter. There's 3 pages of photo's. Click on a photo to enlarge it, and click details to find out locals.

http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?stat=BROWSE&query_src=photos_fauna_com-Reptile&where-lifeform=Reptile&wher

The link is not going directly to the kings. When you get there click on Cal photo on the top left, then click on animals, then on reptiles, then scroll down the list to California kingsnakes.

This desert king is from around the Mojave area, so much still has to be learned about their ranges and coloratins.

I know in Arizona, they are mostly banded. I haven't seen a wild stripe, nor a picture of a wild stripe...but I'm sure a few have been found...so mostly banded in Arizona. But as to the color of cal kings in Arizona...they range from black with thin yellow where I live in Chino Valley, AZ (5,000 ft elevation) to some really nice black and whites and some really nice black and browns.

So I don't think that you can "categorize" them that simply.

There is more to cal kings than just "coastal" and "desert".

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

**to some really nice black and whites and some really nice black and browns**

meant black and yellows instead of black and browns.

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

By all means, their range is huge as is their intergradation and the patterns/colorations they produce. I was born and raised in S Cal and have seen completely different looking kings just feet apart in both the desert and on the coast mountains. They are one king that has much variety.

The snake is my teacher, I'm am just a student!

Scott D

That's a given - the studies of Biston betularia are a prime ex. of natures "shades of grey" so to speak But I would like to know what kind of trends are occurring. Hence my interest in wild populations and anyone who is willing to share their informal locale data.

I left you a link above that might help.

Locale that I know and am familiar with - North County San Diego, to the east, has mainly banded black and yellow. The ones that I have found tend to have the "zipper" kind of bands, where they don't all meet up in the middle, instead they alternate like zipper teeth. The ones around my house always have a few, and the ones people bring in that they find down in the city area tend to have more.

Towards the coast, again just North County, you start to find more striped and more brown. I've had someone come into the store I work for with a mud brown king with a single yellow stripe down its back. He'd found it at a build site on the coast.

I've never found or seen anyone else in my area find a cal king that had white.

Just my two cents!

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire