Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I remember reading a post about the "Suwannee" form of floridana awhile back. It seems like there is little captive breeding of this form. I think it was always that way. A small contingent of floridana fancier's did have access to some wild caught snakes, but the captive propagation of this form never really took off. This pic is from 1992. We (myself and 2 other herper's) found it under a billboard in Nassau county and it was gravid when found. All of the eggs hatched. I kept 2 or 3 for awhile, but soon farmed them all out to other floridana guy's. Wish I knew what became of them and how they turned out. Anyone hear of any recently found ?

Awesome man!

Yes, those are INDEED a much rarer and special form of native getula for sure!

The other's you mentioned probably got bred to anything else someone happened to have laying around eventually(goini, floridana, getula, cornsnake..LOL). Seems like very few people care about continuing the propagation of unique animals like that true to form. Sadly, so many just want to see heads pop out of an egg of ANY kind, and give little forethought to making more genuine articles.

I hope Kevin Enge for example still has those awesome Duval, County animals,....those were absolutely insane looking!

I know Nick Mesa will be especially interested in this post too.

I fully endorse your interest in these cool snakes, and I hope any more you happen to come across in the future, you will try to be propagated and continue on with them as well. These are VERY interesting snakes in my opinion!

best regards, ~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Doug, I agree, I hope more of these are found and bred. I saw many of those WC kings at Kevin's place back in the early 90's. Including the Duvals and Nassau's that he had. I did breed a ton of kings back them, up until the mid-90's. I had WC goini from Art Meyer's and Mike Crick (sp?)from Tallahassee, I did breed those and a bunch of CB different floridana, mostly brooksi. I remember Art bringing me a WC female to my camp at Wright's lake in Appalachicola. He was a great source back then for goini and also the even rarer panhandle Mole kings.

That is very interesting that you were so heavily involved with these and other types back in the day! I know Art Meyer is a close aquantance of the Love's too, and did lots of hunting with Bill back then.

The fact that you saw Kevin's Suwannee's personally is a also very cool indeed!. I would almost donate my left T******e to own a sweet pair of those that looked like Kevin's or yours from back in "the day"..LOL!

I have seen some pics here and there on sites that really caught my eye initially, but after inquiring about their origin, was only disappointed to find out they were nothing more than man-made getula x floridana crosses that were basically worthless look-alike counterfeits. They "looked" like the real "McCoy", but definitely came nowhere close as they were not wild intergrade forms.

Ahh, oh well..LOL!, glad you are interested in those awesome snakes though too,......at least all hope is not lost!

regards, ~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

aren't they a natural intergrade?
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.
6.6 African House snakes
3.2 reticulated pythons
.1 corn snake
4.2 Florida Kings
1.2 speckled kings
1.2 ball pythons
0.0.1 Argentine boa

"aren't they a natural intergrade?"

Yes, very much so! (getula x floridana)

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

>>"aren't they a natural intergrade?"
>>
>>Yes, very much so! (getula x floridana)

Are they a relic intergrade phenotype or can you find both Eastern looking getula and Floridana looking getula within the same range as Suwanees?

Are they classified as L. g. floridana?????? or L. g. getula?????
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

They aren't really "classified" scientifically per se like a subspecies is, but rather are simply known as a rare natural "morph" of Florida king in most all literature.

They can definitely be found in the same areas as the other two pure forms(getula-floridana) as well. Not a whole lot of science is devoted to these snakes other than they are highly prized by folks that appreciate their rarity and uniqueness.

They are certainly the rarest of all the naturally found Florida king morphs, and a close second would of course be the "meansi" getula in the Franklin/Liberty county area of the Florida panhandle.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Forgot to add that they are also found in the same INTERGRADE areas along with many of the less appealing peninsula intergrade snakes too.

They can easily have different percentages of either subspecies as you can well imagine, and this has a whole lot to do with how appealing any individual specimen found would be to the collector too.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Unfortunately Kevin doesn't have any of the original NE Florida Suwannee Kings anymore.

In fact, I don't know of anyone who has any from that area. Too bad I don't live anywhere close.

Man!, that is too bad!. Do you know what actually became of those sweet one's he had??

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Cool photos. There are still intergrade kings in that area, but you'd probably need to create your own tin sets to find them in any numbers.

Las Vegas Reptiles bred Duval County locality Suwannee kings up until a couple years ago. They just sold them as FL kings so they went completely under the radar! Unless you could track down their customers, that line too is lost...

I have some similar kings from Pinellas County, which is the southernmost getulaXfloridana intergrade locality:

Yeah,....and great "looker's" too there Nick!!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

I also remember Doug Foster getting them as WC every now and then back in the Hogtown Herp days.Sometimes he would get an unusual locale from a collector. In one case a hatchling getula from a lady on Cedar Key, her cat found it and dropped it off in her house. Thats the first king I had ever seen from Cedar Key.

Cedar Key is actually not that unusual a locale for kings. They can be found just about anywhere along the Gulf Coast once you get north of Pasco County.

This king I found a little south of Cedar Key, but still in Levy County:

>>I have some similar kings from Pinellas County, which is the southernmost getulaXfloridana intergrade locality:

the kings i found in pinellas county--maybe a couple dozen--were darker than the ones in your pix.

The first one in my previous post is about the darkest one I've found in Pinellas.

I never found any kings in the areas they were traditionally known from around the dump north of St Pete.

That spot was pretty much shot out several years ago.Used to be good for classic black ~n~ cream Monsta's.

Man I have been keeping an eye out for some from these areas and there are not many if any advertised!
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

I know several guy's in GA got some of the offspring. I'm sure the balance sold/traded at the National Expo in Orlando back in '92.

Flintdiver: Great topic & thought i'd add a little input. I too knew Art Meyers well & met up with him a good # of times around Appalach & some honey holes between there and Tallahassee to do plenty of herp bartering .What a great guy he was & had a sense of humor about him.He definately was a fun guy to hang with & share some field time together & in conversation touched on way more topics than herps. He was also a big fossil & artifact guy, and I might add a very military kind of guy.
In the late 80's ,I realized a population of getula looked like integrades in N.E. Fla, and in the 90's , I got to see a good handful of "suwannee" kings come thru an animal dealer in the Tampa area.Just prior to that I had caught 2 myself just west of where the known populations are. They do seem to have a good amount of variation , some are way more speckled out than most.I also think that it would be great if someone was still working with them. There are plenty of somewhat isolated "pockets" of kings from around the state of Fla. that are unique looking unto themselves.Many populations are all but gone due to habitat destruction or fragmentation,but there are some that people don't seem to know about and/or work with.I've caught,kept and bred some Fla kings from a few pockets that were unknown to most in the hobby.Offspring would even be offered as rare locals,but back in the 80s and 90s most were just looked at as just another floridana.I always thought specific locales were worth working with,even if no one else seemed to care!Oh,I might be wrong,I'm guessin' your user name flintdiver means your into lithic projectiles!!Amoungst a few of us ,herps and points go hand in hand!Here's a few hillsboroughs and a s. Tampa hillsborough king!Thanks Alan

OOPS!!! i will try the pics again......

try again!!!!

Alan, great looking King ! Nice frame of Hilly's too ! Is this Alan Hyde ? the St. Leo show guy ? I mostly dive for artifacts and fossils, but it's been a awhile since I have gone. You know , things change. I got heavy in to the artifact hunting after I got out of snakes. Now that my kids are getting older, they can appreciate all of it, the snakes, artifacts,fossils, etc. Here's a pic of some stuff found years ago diving. All Southeast US. I didn't know Art was into artifacts. I was at his home several times in Tally and never realized it. I just was in snake mode at the time.

Flintdiver,I'll keep this short since it's off topic.No, I'm not Alan Hyde from St. Leo. Looks like your findin' some fine stuff there.Do you ever find large meg teeth when your divin'?The case of hills/newnans are actually ones that a friend and myself flint knapped.They are on my wall and were handy to snap a pic of to put on my response to your post.I keep my ancient points locked in storage until I need them.Gotta love artifact hunting,and for me ,getting bitten by the arrowhead bug was as powerful as the field herpin' drive!Have you ever tried knapping,That's addicting also!A good thing about keepin' points is,no scoopin' poop!Ya know,Art never was an artifact collector like we are.But he was genuinely enthuisiastic about them and had a great general knowledge about all things from the field.He and I met up at Roberts,and I showed him a point that I had found that morning.His eyes lit up and he said right away that it was made of agatized coral and was an archaic stemmed point.I said very good call,Art!He said,I'm right aren't I ?So he did know what he was looking at,and was a wheeler dealer type and had points pass thru his hands.Whenever we saw each other he would talk about fossils and ask what I'd found recently.I was truly sad to hear of his passing,bless his soul.To keep the peace with those who read this expecting something about Kings,here is an old school Brooksi.Thanks Alan

That king looks very much like an F1 Hillsborough County locale male I've got.

This is the best I've found in South Dade. A 3 foot female:

Foxturtle,the tampa king in that shot was a young'n when I caught it and was still fairly small when the pic was taken.As an adult it colored up nicely,With the ground color stayin' pretty dark and the speckles different shades of gold and cream.Nice contrast on that one.I've seen quite a variety of looks on them around hills. co. over the past 30 years.When I get a chance I'll show ya the "phase" that I really like.Had to look twice at your brooks,I've seen em around TB that look similar. Thanks

Up until a couple years ago I lived in Clearwater, and would make frequent trips over to Hillsborough County to look for kings. For a while I thought kings were just gone from that area, but I eventually managed to find a couple around Brandon. I never found any out by the saltwater. In retrospect I wish I'd spent more time walking for kings rather than flipping.

This female was a scrawny little 2-footer when I caught her in 2007, and is probably pushing 4 feet now. The picture is from last year, so she has grown/lightened a little since then:

Of course, I was trying to find kings that looked like this F1 produced by Len Krysko in 2002:

Would love to see any of your kingsnake photos.

Thanks,
Nick

That F1 is stunning!
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra