Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am interested in the ins and outs of California King color/pattern genetics. For instance, black and white, verses brown and yellow, or striped verses banded. How is it inherited? I'm asking because I have a deep brown and bright yellow banded cal king (that was given to me as a male)whoes eggs are hatching right now. Not only did I discover she is female, but now that two babies are out, she is het for amel!
Dose an amel version of a brown/yellow snake look different than amel version of black/white? So far the normal looking baby looks black and white.
And lavender, is that an amel variety or hypo? Are there anery cal kings? (I'm a corn snake person new to kings)

If anyone has any info, or could point me to a good website, I'd really appreciate it!!

Thanks!

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FireDrake

2.2 Corn Snakes
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa
1.0 Ball Python
1.0 Bull Snake
0.1 California King Snake
0.1 Common Boa (BCI)
1.2 Bearded Dragons
1.1 Rats
0.1 Chilean Rose-hair Tarantula
1.0 Cinnamon pearl Cockatiel
3.0 Bettas

Corns are simple (relatively so) you have Anery, Hypo, Charcoal, Lava, The third Hypo, bloodred, etc etc etc.... fairly distinct color and pattern genes. Some are less straightforward, some more so, but overall you can say "If you pair up A with B you'll get C, D, E and F".

Cal kings, on the other hand, are just NOT that simple. If you breed a striped cal king to a banded cal king you don't get predictable results... I've heard it said that stripes are dominant over bands, but not that it's as simple as a striped king gives striped babies....

Also I've heard nothing about brown versus black, yellow versus white. I bred a yellowish female to a high white male... the babies hatched looking sparkling black and white. By the time they had their first shed they started to look a little yellowish. Now I've bred my high white to a VERY white and black banded cal king with hopes that VERY white animals bred together will result in very white babies. But it's so difficult to say! Both those two I bred last year had striped snakes in their lineage, but none of the babies were fully striped. The closest it came was one reverse stripe (who died) and one snake with a stripe on 1/3rd of the body. They are SO unpredictable, at least in my limited understanding. Kerby of Lonesome Valley Reptiles would perhaps be one of the more knowledgeable people on here. I bought my original three cal kings from him.
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~Sasheena

I have heard of 'coastal' cal kings, are those the brown and yellow kind?
I spose that makes for more exciting hatchings with cals. When I bred my corns last year I knew exactly what I was getting, the only surprise was more amels than normals. So far I seem to be getting more amels this clutch too, but a few eggs havent pipped yet.
Thanks again

FireDrake
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FireDrake

1.2 Corn Snakes
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa
1.0 Ball Python
0.1 California King Snake
0.1 Common Boa (BCI)
1.2 Bearded Dragons
1.3 Rats
0.1 Chilean Rose-hair Tarantula
1.0 Cinnamon pearl Cockatiel
2.0 Bettas

Black and white is desert phase; brown and yellow is coastal phase.

About striped in Cal kings: From what I've read, the banded pattern is part of the wild type or normal appearance. Striped is caused by a recessive mutant gene in corn snakes, but striped is caused by a dominant mutant gene with variable expressivity. So various kings with one striped gene paired with one normal gene can have decidely different appearances. One might have a stripe with only a few breaks, another might have a stripe with many breaks, another might have parts of the body striped and other parts banded, another might have areas where the bands are oriented at 45 degrees to the axis of the body, and so on. Nobody knows why the variation, AFAIK.

Paul Hollander