Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This little girl came out today - and she ain't no tease.

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I decided my old sig was too big.

That's a beautiful, pure Cal king man. Love that snake. (but maybe something other than pink gravel.....LOL.....light blue always goes well). Congrats.
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Jerry Kruse

"It's all in the reflexes" -- Jack Burton

The gravel is actually a light purple - lighting is weird, combination of energy saver fluorescent bulbs and natural sunlight diffused by California fire smoke coming through the kitchen skylight. If these fires aren't out soon, I'll have to buy an air purifier from tom instead of a snake ...

Here's a picture with flash that shows better color of the gravel -

I didn't use that photo in the post because of the flash reflection on the snake.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

That really IS a nice looking Cal. King!,......seriously!

~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Thanks!
It's funny - my goal is eventually produce a Cal King without a single complete band. I'm hoping that there is a genetic component to it - so my goal has been to hold back the neonates with the most half bands.

The pairing was a WC father to a female with some half bands, not the result of selective breeding for half bands, but it's kind of ironic that I produced a perfect banded - now I'm going to have to hold her back, maybe pairing her with one of her siblings will result in a perfect banded lavender.

I may have to just eat it and go to a show and buy a bunch that have more half bands to jump start the complete zipper project.

In 2010 I will be pairing a male with a good amount to a female with a some but not a lot (both I produced) and see what comes out. But I guess keeping the perfect and the most perfect male will at least give me a control pair to see how heritable the zipper half bands are.

What would be really nice is a cal king with 45 perfect bands Snout to Vent.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

Is "very nice"! Being a California dude (though in NM now) just curoius where the local is from? Thanks!

Scott D

Hakuna Matata

The Father is from Antioch, CA.
The Mother is non locale specific. She was a lavender, and well I didn't ask about locale - the fact that the vendor had lavender in banded, striped, and aberrant (the kind of aberrant you get by crossing banded and stripes, not the neato aberrant like the Clovis black belly) makes me fairly confident his line was mixed locale.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

sounds like a good game plan!,....yes, the 45 band goal will be a real challenge!,...from what I've heard, it's like decades ago when the four minute mile was trying to be reached!..LOL!

Shannon Brown is trying to do the same thing, as well as many other's are too I guess. Do you know, or does anyone else that you know of know what the highest full-banded Cal. has ever been to date?

best regards, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

I'm not personally shooting for high band count, I'd just love to see a perfect super high count.

Most of mine are somewhere between 28 and 32 bands. I really should count them and document how many each has.

It seems from what I've seen that the higher the count, the thinner the bands. Is that generally true?
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I decided my old sig was too big.

From what I have also seen, it tends to basically be that way, but I don't know about all the localities like some other's do. A wide banded King that had a super high band count would really be something to see!,....it would make for a VERY tight pattern.

I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure the highest counts are from the Mojave Desert areas.

here is a pic of a Mojave specimen that has like 43 bands to vent, not including the split bands.

~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

The way I count the split bands (the ones that kind of make a Y in them) is 1.5 bands.

Basically - I count the bands on side from snout to vent and the bands on the other side from snout to vent - add them and divide by 2. Which is the same thing as counting down the back, giving .5 for a half band and 1.5 for a split (Y) band.

Another interesting thing - could mean nothing - the only time I've ever hatched neonates with a Y band is when one of the parents does, and then it is quite common. But in the (one so far, so it may not mean much) pairing where neither parent has a Y band, none of the offspring do. Y bands - I've yet to find one on a wild king here in Redding, though I do find the half bands. Y bands were common in contra costa county.

In a few years I'll have more meaningful data on that when I start breeding some of my second gen Cal Kings.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

When you are counting bands do you count the white bands or the black/brown bands?
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Kent

With the Cal. Kings, it's the light rings that are counted by people in the hobby.

In milksnakes, the standard established scientific method is counting the RED rings(RBR) in conjunction with other meristical differences(scalation, etc...) for subspecific identification.

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"