Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I guess you could call these the old time mountain kings This is a look at eastern KY and some prime black king habitat. As you can see, this area is really remote with nothing in view for miles but forest.

Here is a king from this area. This guy was found under a board at an abandoned still amidst various rubble including some busted mason jars from when them ole boys were making shine.

Here's a look at the belly of a black king found outside Mammoth Cave NP. I find the pattern to be very attractive.

A really dark king from the same area.

A more boldly patterned king from the knobs region of KY.

Good habitat for king snakes in Hardin county KY.

A gravid female found at this site.

A big king from the cave region.

As they say in rural parts of KY when talking about snakes, the mouse police that never sleeps!
Here a king was found patrolling a barn.

One last pic for now. This is a king from the river swamps of western KY. The kings in this area retain a bit of a chain pattern. This seems to be the case for most black kings found in lowland areas. My guess is these guys snag the occasional cottonmouth while prowling about.

pics.I wish I still had the pair I had some 12 years ago from alabama.They weren't the best looking ones but they were cool.

L8r
shannon

p.s.Thanks for all the posts also tom and lasiter

Your welcome Shannon. I'm just glad that there are those that like seeing them. I felt I have been enjoying everyone elses pic's long enough and it was time for me to contribute something.

What a wonderful series of pics. They have made me impatient of the long, cruel winter. It seems like a long time until the end of March before I get to go on a salamander hunt in southern Illinois.
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Tim

Thanks Tim. I know what you mean, it seems the winters are getting longer lol! We start seeing snakes in March, but its not until the latter part of the month that we start seeing them in numbers.

So. Illinois is at about the same latitude as you are so I'll hope to see some snakes too. Spring break is early this year. Thankfully my daughters would rather go herping that go to Disney World - lol.
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Tim

You taught them well Tim!

Phil,
Love those pics of the nigra.
As you know,I have been looking for locality breeders of the Eastern Black King. My search has resulted in some replies concerning people that have caught these in the field, but very few that actually work with the Eastern Black King. I have had responses from Ohio, Illinois and a guy that collected them in Tennessee. One person that responded from Illinois has captive born Southern Illinois babies but is not willing to send me a pair as a "gift". Illinois laws dictate that the only way to obtain these from Illinois locality is to have them given to you as a gift. You cannot sell or barter any snakes from Illinois. You can't even trade for these as this places a value on the snakes which is strictly forbidden. This is the information that I received on Illinois laws regarding these kings. If anyone out there feels that this information concerning Illinois snakes is not correct, please let me know.
The contact with the southern Illinois kings has stated that they will send me photos of the babies. Will try to post these once (if) I get them and will also send to you via E-mail.
Is actually quite frustrating that others are not working with this beautiful king. The Eastern Black (nigra) has now taken over that "top spot" as my favorite king-replacing the Eastern King. My reasoning for this being is that the babies tend to take pinks much more readily than any baby Eastern Kings that I've worked with. I'm sure that there are breeders out there that may not have had any trouble with baby Eastern Kings, but in my limited experience, the Eastern Kings can definitely be challenging!
As requested previously, I would be interested in hearing from anyone out there that is working with locality Eastern Black Kings.
Brad Bauserman

Brad, to my knowledge, I may be the only one out there that has had an established captive breeding program in place with nigra for years. If there are others, they are certainly under the radar. I check various classified ads on occasion and as a rule the only black kings that I have seen for sale were ones that were obviously wild caught from northern Alabama. I have seen the pics of those, and though all king snakes are neat in their own way, I thought them to be poor representatives of nigra. Most of what I have seen from that area that were for sale did not look like pure non-intergrading stock. The black king has a fairly compact range, and I guess I am fortunate to live in KY which is the heart of that range. I was wondering what kind of response you were getting with that post. One of the biggest problems may be that most of the states in which they occur prohibits the sell of native species. Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Georgia all fall in this category for example. Kentucky would allow the sell of captive bred offspring with a commercial propagation permit but prohibits the selling of field collected herps. As you know, I have bred these things for years simply because I like them. Even when it was legal to do so, I gave babies away instead of selling them. Its just what I do. Barring some unforeseen incident I should be breeding them again this year, and as promised I will save some hatchlings for you.
Phil

Phil,
In a way, I feel that the states that restrict the sale of CAPTIVE BORN babies produced from legal wild caught adults is unfortunate. The fact that these snakes can not be offered for sale just spurs on others to collect them illegally.
On the other hand, I do think that the collection of wild caught snakes SHOULD be limited as there are those unscrupulous collectors out there that do not care how many snakes they may collect from a particular area. The problem then for law enforcement is how to differentiate the captive born from the wild caughts. Which can certainly be difficult.
I looked back over the E-mail that was sent to me as follow up by the state of Illinois and I was incorrect. It appears that it is not even legal to give these captive born Illinois nigra as a gift. Oh well........
I have worked with the larger constictors, Australian pythons and some of the more expensive colubrids. Interestingly enough, I've found that I've really missed out on some very interesting, what others consider "low end" colubrids such as the Eastern Black Kings. Since working with them, I've found that they are my favorite colubrid to work with. Just great snakes.
Looking forward to getting the hatchling Kentucky Eastern Black Kings when you hatch them out. Thanks for the opportunity to get them.
Brad

Brad, did you get that info from the Illinois DNR? If so, the regs have changed. For example, last I heard a person could sell captive produced babies of native species of herps with an aquaculture permit. Cost was about $50. I have never seen anything on the Illinois DNR website making it illegal to gift captive bred offspring either. You might want to double check on all that if it is something that might matter to you.

Phil,
Will be sending you an E-mail about this shortly.
Brad

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n/p

>>A big king from the cave region.
>>
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I would say about 5'. We are bringing measuring tubes with us to the field starting this year so we should be able to get some fairly accurate measurments. The current record according to the Peterson field guide is 58", but we know we are seeing kings well over that length.

Yeah I really like the looks of that animal with its high gloss and light speckling on its sides. Is there an area that you have found that on average seems to have the biggest Nigra?

Keith
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Not really Keith. Four+ footers turn up fairly regularly just about everywhere in the range I have been with the occasional whopper appearing from time to time.

>>A big king from the cave region.
>>

>>>>A big king from the cave region.
>>>>

>>A more boldly patterned king from the knobs region of KY.
>>
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n/m

>>Here's a look at the belly of a black king found outside Mammoth Cave NP. I find the pattern to be very attractive.
>>
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Phil.

Great shots of nigra variation.

Any calligaster pics coming soon?

Thanks dingoblue. I have been meaning to put together a series of calligaster shots. I should be putting some up soon.