Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here are the breeders.

Male Lavender
Female Ghost (Palomar) het albino

And the clutch. I was expecting normals (double hets)..instead I got a couple of "purples"...not baby lavenders. Weid stuff...a few more holdbacks Arggg

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

Would those purples be the visual double het of lavender and amel?
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I decided my old sig was too big.

All the babies are double het (Lavender & Ghost/Palomar). I know my female is het for albinism from breeding. And I know that the male Lavender is NOT het albino, NOT het for hypo, and NOT het for hypermelanism from other breedings. So some of these babies could be het for albinism since the Ghost/Palomar is het..

A few years ago I bred my male Ghost/Palomar to a female Mendota (hypermelanism) and got normal looking double hets (weird head pattern)....so all of these genes are different...BUT I think my female Ghost/Palomar is the wierd gene carrier. I got them from Brian at B.H.B. as babies and according to him he bred them to other cal kings because of poor fertility problems with Ghost x Ghost. So that explains why my female Ghost/Palomar is 100% het albino, but what are the odds that she is also het for both strains of Lavender?

Maybe next year I will breed her with a Blue-Eyed Blonde........

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

Kerby,

the last time you got those Purple guys you bred Ghost to what exactly (Hypo??)

I think this is pretty cool.

there seems to be a lot (genetically) going on with cali kings that we have yet to see.

Any updated pix of the 1st purple hatchling you popped out?

thanx

~ZF

The last 2 years, '07 & '06 I bred the (hypo)male, what Great Valley Serpentarium calls a "Lavender", to the female Ghost and produced some "purple" looking babies with the same aberrant pattern. So this year I bred a Lavender to the Ghost and got almost the same results.....and in the past I bred a (hypo) Great Valley Serpentarium "Lavender" to a Lavender and produced normal banded double hets (both strains of Lavender) and yet when I breed the 2 different types of Lavender to the female Ghost in 2 different years, I get the same results. Interesting.

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

Yes very interesting indeed!

(Hypo) Purple X Ghost (mother)

(Hypo) Purple x (Lavender) Purple

should be really killer projects!!!

~ZF

Very nice! They have some cool looking patterns too. The Ghost Cal kings are very interesting because of all the photo's I've seen of them, they are always patternless above the tail like a Newport. Have you noticed this too? Is it possible the originals were bred with Newports to help create the aberrant pattern of the Ghost, or did the Ghost always have that pattern? Palomar has no Newporters, so it seems strange the Ghost would also be patternless above the tail which is a Newport trait.

**The Ghost Cal kings are very interesting because of all the photo's I've seen of them, they are always patternless above the tail like a Newport.**

Not sure what you mean by patternless, they all have an aberrant pattern, but they aren't patternless.

**Is it possible the originals were bred with Newports to help create the aberrant pattern of the Ghost, or did the Ghost always have that pattern?**

I have seen some pics of a wild-caught Palomar/Ghost and it looked just like mine. So it is unique in itself.... Absolutely no other locale introduced. It is obvious that Brian/B.H.B. bred the original Ghost/Palomar (his words to me over the phone about 6 years ago) to other cal kings...so the ones I got from Brian are NO LONGER locale specific. The aberrant pattern comes with the recessive gene similar to the Mendota and Davis hypermelanistic recessive gene.

**Palomar has no Newporters, so it seems strange the Ghost would also be patternless above the tail which is a Newport trait.**

I don't see any patternless, unless you mean no banding, which would be just an aberrancy, which occurs in lots of places.

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

**The Ghost Cal kings are very interesting because of all the photo's I've seen of them, they are always patternless above the tail like a Newport.**

Not sure what you mean by patternless, they all have an aberrant pattern, but they aren't patternless.

I'm talking about the lack of banding or striping above the tail.

**Is it possible the originals were bred with Newports to help create the aberrant pattern of the Ghost, or did the Ghost always have that pattern?**

I have seen some pics of a wild-caught Palomar/Ghost and it looked just like mine. So it is unique in itself.... Absolutely no other locale introduced. It is obvious that Brian/B.H.B. bred the original Ghost/Palomar (his words to me over the phone about 6 years ago) to other cal kings...so the ones I got from Brian are NO LONGER locale specific. The aberrant pattern comes with the recessive gene similar to the Mendota and Davis hypermelanistic recessive gene.

Thanks for that info, Kerby. That's what I wanted to hear, but do all ghosts (or at least the wild caught photo's you seen) have no pattern above their tails like the one in Byrons photo?

**Palomar has no Newporters, so it seems strange the Ghost would also be patternless above the tail which is a Newport trait.**

I don't see any patternless, unless you mean no banding, which would be just an aberrancy, which occurs in lots of places.

I'm talking about specifically above the tail, no other place. Newports and ghosts are the only wild morphs with that trait. The reason why I'm asking about the lack of pattern above the tail in ghosts, is because of a discussion me and Hubbs had about Newport's and stripers or Orange Co. and S.D. Co. and if there is a definite connection between the stripers and Newport's. Ghosts were brought up in the discussion but neither of us knew anything about their original look and if the Newport type tail was on the originals.

Hey Ross.

The original ghost male that was collected had this same 'patternless' look to it. There are a couple of guys that kept the line pure and dealt with the so called problems with feeding - or the lack thereof, and the bloodline just being weak. Some others ourcrossed them to generic coastals to strengthen the line. I dont know about Newporters though.... I think just coastals from surrounding areas.
I have a good sized group of these - most of which were grandfathered by the founding male - like this female pictured here, and I do have a few that will go feed for a few weeks at a time but they always come back around for me.

Hope that helps bro.

byron.

Thanks Byron, that does help a lot. Have all the ghosts you've seen had the solid brown color above the tail like the one in your photo?

this cut and paste from a e-mail that Gary Keesler sent me about the Palomars I got from him years ago.My group of one male ghost and one het striped female and one het banded female are all total locale specific to palomar.
We bred these for the first time this year and only the striped went.She laid ten eggs and five were ghost and five were hets.

this is what Gary said:

The Palomar story is pretty cool. Randy Limburg caught a very faded male
stiper sometime in the 70's. I thought it was unusual & he & I collected a
female from near the same spot that was normal striped. Normal Palomars are
usually a chocolate brown & yellow in color. They had a small clutch & I
kept one female banded that seemed more faded than the others. When I bred
her back to the original male, the aberrant ghost popped out. It was a male
& when I bred him back to his mother, I got about half ghosts from the
clutch. When I bred ghosts to each other, they were all ghosts. I had no
idea the ghost would pop out. I was only trying to get faded kings.

L8r Shannon

Awesome, Shannon! Thanks for posting all of this.

Great Job Kerby. Love those purples. Any chance any of the hatchlings will be available? Drop me a line and let me know. Thanks.

Take care,
Jeff Port
jcctt96@aol.com

I will have to sex them, then see what I want to keep for future projects as I am still trying to reduce another 30-40 breeders. After the Tucson Show is when I will see what I want to move out.

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

Kerby,
Thanks. Yeah I saw you are trying to reduce your group. There are a few I would love to pick up but not sure if I can right now. Just keep me posted about these babies. Thanks.

Take care
Jeff