I think most of you, that does mean you, have it very very wrong. As one of the pioneers of kingsnake breeding and kingsnake hybrids and as the pioneer of Albino cal kings, I have a little perspective on this subject.
First, you rationalize passing crosses, morphs, hybrids off as normal, IS ALL ABOUT SALES OR MONEY. Well, to a small degree, it may have happened, but the biggest problem is IGNORANCE. Most folks simply did not know what they had, did not care what they had and called it whatever they thought it looked like or wanted it to look like.
For every "expert/big name" you had a 1000 naive new keepers that just learned out to breed kings. This was something that occurred quickly and was something not expected or prepared for.
You see, snakes WERE hard to breed in the 60's to early 70's, then with the advent of basic husbandry that worked on all colubrids, even newbies without field experience could produce kingsnakes. Most did not know or care about one species or another. So they bred what ever they had and called them whatever someone else called them or they made up names.
To a VERY large extent, this occurs today. For everyone of you who cares or thinks you care about local types or species, there are 100's of thousands of snake keepers that buy their snakes from the local petshop or petsmart/petco type places. These snakes come from the giant colubrid breeders that produce aprox 70,000 snakes a year of all kinds and mixes. These places sell them to the large outlets for a few dollars. The folks are these large outlets, do not know a kingsnake from a doorknob and they give advice to those newbie keepers. Now consider.
I have seen the EXPERTS here label a snake that was purchased from one of these types of outlets. You know, what kind of king do I have, type of question, then four or five of you, give your GUESSES. So, many of you ARE THE PROBLEM as well. Any snake from unknown sources, cannot be considered a local genotype(pure as not a friggin thing to do with it)
The keeper then accepts advice from one of you(any one of you) and passes it along like it was accurate.
Another story read here is, the original albino this or that, came from a petshop(back east) and was the first pure, this or that. If it came from a petshop, its local type is a PETSHOP. Not an eastern or fla, etc.
Those are only a few examples of how this stuff became mucked up. Not by money or sales, but simple ignorance and maybe some excitement or hopeful thinking.
Yes, there are always folks that push the truth or lie to make a sale. But they are small in number, compared to the ignorant(not knowing)
So what you now have is, DOGS. Dogs are breeds,(of a common ancestor) If it physically appears like a breed, then it is. If it does not, then it isn't. There are no certified lines of snakes. NONE NADA, zero, like there is with dogs.
PURE, that word is bullbeans, as far as I can tell, less then 1% of you folks produce snakes that represent a wild phenotype. That is, snakes that are average for a local. You all and I mean all, select animals that are exceptional(not a normal phenotype) for a local. Or you select them for individuals that survive in captivity(pinkie feeders being an example)
So when you take the number of captive produced snakes from the big breeders, those that produce over 50,000 a year, and there are a handful of them. Lets say 200,000 thousand colubrids enter the pet trade each and EVERY YEAR. And they are mostly of unknown origin. And these go to newbies without any field or field guide experience, what the heck do you expect?
As I often say, very few of these PURE snakes you folks are now producing look anything like the originals. And I should know, I did collect and produce a number of the originals.
Another problem is ego, each new generation wants to be unique. They all want to be a pioneer and do something new. So over the years, names have been reapplied to captive lines of pure snakes. Things like Applegate this or Lemke that, etc etc. The problem is, they were not the first either. The problem is, many of the animals they started with, came from others, who got them from others. Those two wonderful folks are only used as an example. I know them, I sold them snakes many many years ago.
Heres the odd part, since I returned to this board, I have seen maybe ten kings labeled as Fla kings that look like ones I collected in Fla, in the early seventies. The rest labeled as pure, thousands, are spectacular but do not look like PURE.
Now for the biggie, the phenotype(the wild one you pick up) is one of a zillion possibilities that can occur from a pure local genotype. What is normal for a population is a product of genotype and selective pressures. This produces a temporary "normal" for each local. In this normal are always pioneers(odd patterned and colored snakes) that are looking to successfully alter the average phenotype. In the case of color and pattern, which is what we are talking about here. Local type is a ever changing event, and it does change quickly.
So, the Phenotype(the normal look at a local) is an ever changing character that fits the present conditions or disappears.
And you think you have pure what??????????????Thanks for letting another old guy rant. Cheers
