Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone, I just adopted my first kingsnake about a month ago and need a little help in figuring out its morph. I'm almost certian its a California king. Its colors are a dark chocolate brown and pale yellow. The pictures arnt good quality but you get the idea of the markings. At first I thought it was an abherrent Cali king, but then I saw a picture of an aztec king and it looks a lot more like it. Am I even close to its kind? I'd also appreciate a guess to its gender. It looks male to me. I named him Mia Bellus Monstrum (Latin students please correct me), translated to My Beautiful Monster. Thank you for all your help.



-----
0.1.0 Columbian boa constrictor
1.0.0 Albino burmese python
1.0.0 Pine/bull snake hybrid
0.1.0 Ball python
3.0.0 Cornsnake (anerythristic, snow, normal)
0.0.1 Cali kingsnake
0.0.1 Rainwater albino leopard gecko
1.0.0 Tokay gecko
1.0.0 Bahama anole
0.0.1 Red eared slider
1.4.0 Cat
4.3.0 Bird
1.0.0 Dog

He looks like what used to be sold as a High White Cal King, although recently high white has been used to refer to snakes with even more white than that.

BTW - It has been 20+ years since I took latin, but I do know that mia bellus monstrum would get you thrown out of Latin class.

Bellus means nice, not beautiful, and it has to agree with the neuter gender of the noun monstrum, which would make it bellum - which also happens to be the word for war.

Mia is an Italian word, not a latin word. If I remember correctly, it is usually not necessary unless you are deliberately stressing that it belong to you (that's MY doughnut, keep your paws off!). The latin word for my is meus, or in this case, meum.

Monstrum means a wonder, not necessarily a monster (although you could argue they are the same thing). I think belua is used to imply a horrific beast, equivalent to the english word monster.

A better name might be belua pulchra, which translates into beautiful beast. If you want the unnecessary my, you could call it mea belua pulchra.

I don't know if that is perfect, but it is closer to correct.

-----
Chris Harrison

>>He looks like what used to be sold as a High White Cal King, although recently high white has been used to refer to snakes with even more white than that.
>>
>>BTW - It has been 20 years since I took latin, but I do know that mia bellus monstrum would get you thrown out of Latin class.
>>
>>Bellus means nice, not beautiful, and it has to agree with the neuter gender of the noun monstrum, which would make it bellum - which also happens to be the word for war.
>>
>>Mia is an Italian word, not a latin word. If I remember correctly, it is usually not necessary unless you are deliberately stressing that it belong to you (that's MY doughnut, keep your paws off!). The latin word for my is meus, or in this case, meum.
>>
>>Monstrum means a wonder, not necessarily a monster (although you could argue they are the same thing). I think belua is used to imply a horrific beast, equivalent to the english word monster.
>>
>>A better name might be belua pulchra, which translates into beautiful beast. If you want the unnecessary my, you could call it mea belua pulchra.
>>
>>I don't know if that is perfect, but it is closer to correct.
>>
>>-----
>>Chris Harrison

but not that off. Can you tell I used a latin-english dictionary?
-----
0.1.0 Columbian boa constrictor
1.0.0 Albino burmese python
1.0.0 Pine/bull snake hybrid
0.1.0 Ball python
3.0.0 Cornsnake (anerythristic, snow, normal)
0.0.1 Cali kingsnake
0.0.1 Rainwater albino leopard gecko
1.0.0 Tokay gecko
1.0.0 Bahama anole
0.0.1 Red eared slider
1.4.0 Cat
4.3.0 Bird
1.0.0 Dog

Latin gets confusing because nouns and adj. have to agree. I think of it as conjugating nouns. An english example would be who/whose/whom. Thats one of the few words that still does that. Makes it hard to use a dict unless you already knew this.

I haven't thought about Latin class or the nun who taught it in 20 years, either. However, her drill was brutal and I believe you to be correct.