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These coastal gophers (at least the normals) don't get much love on the forum anymore...



The Great Basin's have a handful of die-hard loyalists here...


Ditto for the Sonorans...

I'll take "normals" any day of the week. Nice specimens, thanks for sharing the pics.

I believe the natural form is always the most attractive. All of those snakes are lookers too. That coastal really looks like a garter snake to me! Take that as a compliment.
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- Matt

1.0 Black Milk '04
1.0 Andean Milk '06
0.1 Eastern King (SC locale) '97
0.1 Bullsnake '09

I've always been a big fan of normal annectens with a good amount of orange and red in the tail.

Jeremy
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Bigger, meaner, rarer, hot.

Thanks Matt,

At home, I sometimes refer to my annectens as garter-gophers as the laterals in combination with transitional base coloration forms a striped effect...

Is the coastal gopher the same as the Pacific gopher, Pituophis catenifer catenifer?

A pair of my Pacific gophers.

Hey Pyro,

I have (of late) been referring to annectens as the coastal gopher (purely vernacular for the San Diego gopher). They just do edge into desert areas in a couple of places, otherwise they are a coast range and coastal ranging snake. P.c. catenifer on the other hand extends a bit further inland, well into the foothills of the Sierras and into a fairly large contact zone with P.c. deserticola (southwest extent of range). The annectens contact deserticola to a degree in the central/eastern part of their range but without much (if any) intergrade. Coastal populations of catenifer typically have much higher blotch counts than their more inland counterparts. There is a seemingly broad (more of a transition) zone between annectens and catenifer in Monterey County. The linage of your catenifer are likely coast range (Santa Cruz area perhaps).

Pure snake nerd-dom stuff here but that is my domain...

Thanks for explaining this. Mine then are P.c. catenifer, as they all hail from inland areas.

One of an cb 09 pair from Santa Cruz Mts in California.

A wc one from Calaveras County in California.

Beautiful examples of P.c. catenifer. As much as I admire the catenifer, I do not currently have one. Looking to pick up a pure striped form some day. By the way, how are yours?

An unrelated pair of 09 striped Pacifics. The brother to the female is in a separate cage. The weather has suddenly gotten hot and almost all my pits are being a little snarky of late, but are eating up a storm. These two where all hiss and spit but it did them no good; I took their photo anyway! LOL!

They're looking good Pyro! That's some real good growth for a pair of 09s. Nice golden brown colors, etc., etc. Man those catenifer are tempting...

The only snark I have is my red bull. He's always been a pissy one from day one. Not a biter, just a hissy-fit bluffer.

All my gophers are hand tame and almost never even buzz. Aggressive feeders though, especially now that it's hot (peak of their feeding activity for the next several months).

Man those are superb specimens!
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See all my snakes at SerpenTrack.com

Nice shout out to Monterey County lol. I live there (salinas). Here are a few pics of ones I caught.

The gopher was found in my condo complex 2 weeks ago, the moutain kingsnake was caught in a backyard. I was on my way home from work back then (SPCA) and they asked if I could go check out a call about a snake since no one else likes them.

The Banded King was found on Ft. Ord at an undisclosed location. I used to hunt snakes back in the eighties when my dad was stationed there. Awesome memories lol..

Very nice!!!

I really like the GB.

Jason

Jason,

This one resembles your blond GBs to a degree. Dont know the specific linage of mine but I suspect eastern/southeastern Mojave Desert. Transitioned into a beautiful subadult. Here's the annual sequence...
as an 08 neonate

as a nearly one year old...

and now as a nearly two-year-old (now taking small rats)

Of course, I would like another (this time a female), with color/pattern just like his.

What an awesome display of beautiful pits!!
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Genesis 1:1

Beautiful stuff. That's my favorite of all the annectens I've seen!
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See all my snakes at SerpenTrack.com

Got two of them (clutchmates) from Home Grown Herps last August. Liked the look of his breeders and liked the neos so much from the photos, I just had to have that second one. Had my pick of the litter too as the normals just don't seem to be a mainstream item these days.

I like the orange colors on that Pacific Gopher. Here's a baby that I found in the Santas Cruz Mountains in April:

Third Eye

WOW!!
There's some Awesome examples in this thread,In fact they're ALL awesome.

Thanks everyone for sharin all the sweet gophers.
Its a dream to think about finding Pits in the field and you guys are so lucky to have that lovely side to the hobby.

Guess I'd better represent the U.K. and make a submission.

Cheers..........AL

Second Gen. Hypo and Albino het hypo annectans