Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.

Click here for Dragon Serpents
Click for ZooMed
Click here for Dragon Serpents

southern california kingsnakes awesome!

kingsnakeadam Apr 25, 2012 09:43 PM

Found these two lastnight and was wondering how rare it is to find these like this in the wild,in the area I would say about half of the population looks like these or some kind of variations. I found about 7 of them but all others were dor some really beautiful ones to its a buisey road. Give me some feed back.



Replies (26)

rosspadilla Apr 25, 2012 10:51 PM

Thanks, Adam. Those are SD striped aberrants. They almost always have a mix of dots, bars running across the back, and dashes. We have names for the ones that mostly favor one of those traits, like you first one is a dotted morph. The ones with mostly bars are barred morphs and the ones with mostly dashes are highway morphs. The ones that don't really fall into those categories are normaly just called SD striped aberrants. They can be found over the entire SD striped morph range, which includes SD Co., Riverside Co., and Orange Co. They are rare over most of their range, but there are some areas where they are more common and no one knows why. What's really rare is to find one that is 90% or more of all dots or bars. 100% dotted or barred would be incredible from the wild. What county did you find them in if you don't mind me asking? btw, those are really cool. Thanks for posting.
-----

kingsnakeadam Apr 25, 2012 11:45 PM

Thanks a lot!!!!!! I really like them I already got them to eat. I like your site very cool!!!! They were found in riverside county. It seems to me to be about half the population or maybe I just got lucky. Do u think that the normal banded ones on thethe same area cary those genes to?

rosspadilla Apr 26, 2012 12:41 AM

They are kind of like a co dominant gene, but a little different. Brian Hubbs was telling me if you breed a striper to a banded from the same locale, most of the babies will be whatever the mother was. Its rare to get aberrants in locality breeding, but if you breed a striper to a banded from a different locale, like LA Co., you will get mostly aberrants. He also told me if you breed two bandeds together from an area with stripers, you can also get some striped in that clutch. I know a guy that bred an aberrant like yours from Ramona to a banded from the same locale and got half striped and half bandeds, but got no aberrants. I don't know what would happen if you bred two aberrants to each other from the same locale, but if they were from different locales, you'd get a big mix of everything. I'm glad you like the site. I'll have to put some of your pictures in there if you don't mind.
-----

Aaron Apr 26, 2012 04:20 AM

That's interesting what you say about breeding within locality yields different results than when you cross localities. I'm a bit confused about something, you said "...got half striped and half bandeds, but got no aberrants." I always considered anything that wasn't either fully striped or fully banded, including half striped half bandeds, to be abberrants. In your terminology what qualifies as an aberrant? I'm not saying your wrong, I'm just wondering what you mean by aberrant.
On another note do you know how many times Brian breed those snakes and how many pairs he used? I think you could get different results using different individuals so I'm thinking those results might not hold up if he only bred one pair of each. Basicly my theory or hypothesis or whatever you call it, is that any second generation striper, be it male or female, will throw a higher percentage of stripers, any second generation banded will throw a higher percentage of bandeds, and so on. So in theory, if you bred a banded to a first generation striper you'd get different results than breeding a banded to a second geeneration striper. What do you think of that?
-----
www.hcu-tx.org/

Jlassiter Apr 26, 2012 06:14 AM

>>That's interesting what you say about breeding within locality yields different results than when you cross localities. I'm a bit confused about something, you said "...got half striped and half bandeds, but got no aberrants." I always considered anything that wasn't either fully striped or fully banded, including half striped half bandeds, to be abberrants. In your terminology what qualifies as an aberrant? I'm not saying your wrong, I'm just wondering what you mean by aberrant.

I think Ross was saying that half of the clutch was striped and the other half of the clutch was banded....None were aberrant in the clutch...
-----
John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...

rosspadilla Apr 26, 2012 09:01 AM

Thanks, John. I was writing while you were posting. lol
-----

rosspadilla Apr 26, 2012 08:57 AM

Hi Aaron, I thought my wording might have been a little confusing when I said half striped half banded. I meant half of the clutch was striped kings and the other half was banded kings. Yeah, a single snake that is half striped and half banded would definitely be aberrant. As for Hubbs results, I couldn't tell you how many kings he bred to get those results, but it was definitely more that one pairing. I think his results were in general terms, like not every two bandeds are going to produce some striped every time. He also mentioned if you take a pair of f1's from a striped X banded crossing, they will produce aberrants. Not sure of the percentages, though. But it does make sense that aberrants are not easily produced within certain localities, because they would be much more common if they were. That's about all I could tell you, because I've never bred locality striped kings.
-----

Kerby... Apr 26, 2012 09:20 AM

I don't think Brian has ever bred any snakes before. And he knows absolutely nothing about genetics.

Just saying............

Kerby...
-----
Life is like a bunch of fish in an aquarium....we all get along (bonding) until I want to eat you....and I do.


rosspadilla Apr 26, 2012 09:58 AM

hahahahaha True, he knows nothing about genetics or morphs for that matter. He made a lot of mistakes in naming certain morphs in his book and would not take my advise on making some changes before it came out. He told me he used to collect kings in the early spring and paired them up. FR has also supported some of Hubbs findings.
-----

Kerby... Apr 26, 2012 11:30 AM

Brian has probably found more snakes in the wild than anyone for sure, but he does not breed snakes.

Kerby...
-----
Life is like a bunch of fish in an aquarium....we all get along (bonding) until I want to eat you....and I do.


FR Apr 26, 2012 01:15 PM

Kerby, Brian Hubbs has not found more snakes then everyone in the world, what the heck are you thinking. Hes not even close, many not even in his home state, or Az. where he now resides. Not even close.

Why would you say such a thing. He also knows something about genetics, So saying he knows nothing is also odd.

I find these WOW statements, ok, back to work

rosspadilla Apr 26, 2012 01:35 PM

I will say this, Brian has learned at least a little bit about genetics in recent years. He surprised me a while back when he told me the difference between axanthic and anerythiristic. I don't know how much more he knows beyond that, but he always tells me he knows nothing about genetics because he doesn't care about it.
-----

Aaron Apr 26, 2012 10:19 PM

Thanks Ross(and John) for clarifying that. Now that I read it again I wonder how I interpreted it they way I did.

As far as the locality breeding thing, that's still very interesting. I wonder if it kinda throws a monkey wrench into Zwiefel's old study since he used kings from widely separate localities, I believe. These are such neat animals.
-----
www.hcu-tx.org/

rosspadilla Apr 27, 2012 12:28 AM

I'd like to read his work one day, but never wanted to have to buy it. He crossed a Whittier morph, which is recessive, to a SD striper. His results with the percentage of Whittiers produced from the hets was right, but their patterns were wrong. If he was using examples from localities far enough from each other, they might have been off from pure locality breeding. I'd still like to do those SD breedings my self just to see.
-----

kingsnakeadam Apr 26, 2012 12:50 PM

Ross, yeah no problem u could put the pics on your site that would be cool, let me know if u want me to take some different pics that look a lil more professional. Why haven't anybody breed the same looking ones like mine together I would think u would get some really cool looking ones I guess I got some work to do, hopefully I find some adults and get them going this year soon. Im going out again sat and sun evening/night the weather looks good for this weekend. It sucks there is so much traffic on this road there was one that I swerved for and pulled over but the 5 cars behind me ran it over, I guess ill have to "borrow" some road closed signs and put them up then the road will be all mine lol!!!!

rosspadilla Apr 26, 2012 01:57 PM

hahaha Yeah, that's about the only way to do it on certain roads. If you want you could take some pictures of them outside, because the lighting will be better and everything will look more natural, but its up to you. I could put your full name down for credit or leave it as your screen name here, its up to you. If you guys got some good rain last night like we did, it would be a good idea to go check under any kind of item you could find where they might be hiding. You'll have to go soon before it dries out, though. People do breed those type of aberrants together all the time in captivity, but breeding locality aberrants like you have is rare. You might get different results compared to captive animals. If you ever do breed an aberrant to any other type of king from the same locale, let me know what you get. Its probably been done before, but the information is not out there that I know of. Locality breeding in Cal kings with morphs is very uncommon. I know very few people that do it besides me. Well, except for grease kings, there are several people out there that are breeding those.
-----

kingsnakeadam Apr 26, 2012 06:49 PM

Ok I got some more pics there is quite a few so u could pick ones that u like. Should I post them or should I email them to u . Yes that would be totally cool to use my full name as well ill send it with the pics. O might have a couple hours tomorrow to go flipping but most likely sat and sun evening/night for me. I do plane on breeding them hopefully I could get some more like these and especially some adults!!!!

rosspadilla Apr 26, 2012 07:50 PM

Thanks. You could send them to my e mail if you want along with your name. ttyson86 at A O L dot C O M BTW, I really appreciate it.
-----

kingsnakeadam Apr 26, 2012 10:23 PM

Ok I sent it out through my phone let me know if it went through

rosspadilla Apr 27, 2012 12:44 AM

.
-----

DMong Apr 26, 2012 01:47 AM

Very cool finds there Adam!, I really like those guy's a lot!.

Ross, seeing these snakes instantly reminded me of a while back when Hubbs had all the different colored arrows pointing to which shapes he was personally defining as dots, dashes, and bars, etc......remember that??. Some you could practically flip a coin as to what they were, or if you held your head at a slightly different angle when considering the shapes, some could either be a long dot or a very short dash. That was funny as heck man..

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

serpentinespecialties.webs.com


"some are just born to troll and roll"

rosspadilla Apr 26, 2012 02:17 AM

hahaha Yeah, I remember that thread. Hubbs is one of those guys you just have to laugh at sometimes. He has a tremendous ego, which makes it difficult to discus things with. That's why we always go at it on FHF. lol Deep down he really is a good guy, though.
-----

DMong Apr 26, 2012 12:46 PM

Oh, I know,.........I was just commenting on how funny it was. I have talked to him in person for a long while as well as on the phone several times.

.......eccentric with lots of sarcastic humor..

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

serpentinespecialties.webs.com


"some are just born to troll and roll"

rosspadilla Apr 26, 2012 05:19 PM

I know you know, but does he know you know that I know? lol The irony in Hubbs post, where he was trying to point out that king didn't have very many dots, is that that snake was a much better example of a dotted morph then any king he's posted calling a dotted morph. lol
-----

DMong Apr 26, 2012 06:09 PM

.........freakin' HILARIOUS!!!

Love the "down-playing" of someone else's discovery...

HAHAHAA!!!!.......AAAHHHAHAHAAAAA!!!!

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

serpentinespecialties.webs.com


"some are just born to troll and roll"

denbar Apr 26, 2012 12:00 PM

Very cool Adam. I would never have expected that high of a percentage of "dotted" ones in the wild! Thanks for sharing.

--Dennis

Site Tools