Reptile & Amphibian Forums

HELLO...I have fallen in love with the Mexicana as a group.. But how do I tell which species is which? 1 book gives species details, the other book says all grey-banded kingsnakes are all just Mexicana..

I have 3 greybanded kings. ALL 3 BOUGHT AS Variable Kingsnakes. 1 is definately a mex mex, 1 is a Leonis phase Thayeri but the 3rd matches photos of Durango Mountain Kings(geeri). The 1st two snake I bought just last week, came from biologist that kept all the details including original breeder(Renegade kingsnakes for the Mexican King and Applegate for Variable). But my greyband came from 3rd party that bought it as a Variable.

I was hoping to pair the greyband with the other variable but only if pure.

Any ideas??

Harpy

Sorry, I still need to take photos. And don't wish to grab look-a-likes off the net.

-----
Have You Hugged Your Herp Today?

My quick advice would be to get some pictures here to share, and also trace those animals back to the breeder.... that may not be the person that sold them to you either.

In a sense it is not hard to tell them apart, that is until somebody starts doing the mix and match breeding projects... but with some pics here you will get plenty of opinions on them.

To learn how to tell them apart, I would start with some photo galleries and what is uploaded to the forums, that will show you a range of variation and what breeders are pushing for these days in their projects. Many of them are now line bred so that they do not really represent the natural form but a more extreme end on some trait for color or pattern.

One good photo gallery off the KS.com stuff is SierraHerps.com (they are sponsor with a banner in this forum) and you can look at photos, read up on some natural history and soak up some background.

For the alterna visit http://www.kingsnake.com/alterna/index.html and use the image gallery link there to browse them county by county.

Hope this helps..

Lance

http://www.sierraherps.com/

-----
___________________________
Herp Conservation Unlimited

If people really learn from their mistakes, I should be like the smartest guy in the world

Pictures posted here would be your best bet....
There are many posters here that could tell you what each one is and what each of their defining characteristics separate the subspecies, unless as mentioned above - you may have some crossed 'mixicana' then educated guesses could be made to tell you what might have been crossed.

so...Post some pics when you can...
-----
John Lassiter

"Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part....."