Reptile & Amphibian Forums

No doubt about it, there are some gorgeous Easterns out there. Some of the ones Keith posts are to die for, but the West has a few aces in the deck, too.

The deserts of Nevada and southern Kalifohnia hold populations with gleaming white bands against hard black--contrast, contrast, contrast. Some have white bands as wide as the black, and are the source stock for high-white morphs. Others have pinstripe white on black.

This is a yearling from Clark County, Nevada stock, one of the locales known for high white animals.

Potrait.

Here's one from the Baja population, once designated ssp "conjuncta". The subspecific status has been dropped in revision, and it could now be thought of as the conjuncta phase. Whatever, I like it--it's tack sharp.

I got that one at a local herp show, and it made the trip for me. I picked up a pair at a great price--little pinstriped gems.

Great text book pics, how about yuma's do ya have any pics of them?

I rember back in the 80's we used to find high band count desert calis in the NE mohave area. they had 70 band counts . I have never seen them reproduced in the hobby. Probably becuase to much attention is on the designer calis.

WOW that Conjuncta animal is pretty damn sweet ! Do you know who is breeding those ? Are you yet ?

Keith
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The pinstriped calis were produced by a local breeder. Mine are still hatchlings, although I will be breeding them when they grow up. As I review the images on the monitor, I notice that the white looks wider than in person, perhaps due to flaring. They are the crispest little calis I've seen.

I know a breeder who used to breed these and they were a real locality regardless of what others are saying and they were Conjuncta. Bob Fengya was the guys name and he sent me pics of his animals and they were identical to those. Thanks for the info Il will ahve to hit you up a in a few years for a pair.

Keith
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Great pics. I love the thin banded cal kings. I will have to side with Jetzen here......where are the Yuma kings. They are one of the coolest looking kingsnakes I've ever seen, but they are nearly impossible to find.

I do have one question....did you buy or catch the conjuncta? Until now, I was always under the impression that the conjuncta and natida cal kings were forms of the Baja Cal kings......only described as being melanistic.

Conjuncta = melanistic banded
Natida = melansitic striped

Again, great looking snakes.

Brandon Osborne

conjuncta does not look like that.

I confess I was repeating what I was told re: the designation of the baja king. If you say conjuncta does not look like that, then so be it. I do still like the little guys, regardless of how they are named.

Natida and Conjuncta are former names given to what taxonomists thought were a seperate sub-species of getula found in the Baja Penensula. These are only another form of cal king which have the normal banded pattern {conjuncta), and the normal striped pattern (natida), but are nearly solid brown or black with a VERY faint patter. These 2 "locality" phases were used to produce the snow albino cal king. With the amel gene combined with the melanistic gene, a solid white snake was produced.....although some have a very faint pattern. You have beautiful snakes none the less. Thanks for posting.

Brandon Osborne