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This is a captive born hypo Cal King I got directly from Gerald Merker. They originate with wild specimens from El Dorado county and were kept pure to the locality. According to Gerald it is genetic. I will have to ask Gerald to refresh my memory but in our original conversation I believe he said he had proven it simple recessive. I have seen wild Cal Kings just as light from coastal Southern California but I have to say these have a different appearance.
From Carlsbad I have seen very dark to chocolate and then some that are extremely light and could be described as lighter than chocolate but not quite lavender. To my knowledge nobody is breeding these pure but I think it would be interesting to take a dark phase and breed it to a chocolate and then take two of the chocolates and breed them to see if you get "super chocolates". It kinda makes me wonder if some of the light Cal Kings everywhere may be hypo and if there are both codominant and simple recessive hypos occuring at various localities. I don't think this is far fetched because I have heard of three different lavender like Cal Kings found at three widely separated locals.
Whatever the case may be there is certainly huge variation in the wild Cal Kings and it makes for interesting speculation.

That is a very nice looking King. I do not work with Cal Kings and have not owned one in a decade so it is difficult for me to judge what a Hypo would be though I do think BHBs Ghosts are probably Hypos.I did notice the sharp eye color on your snake. I am a fan of Tim Gebhard, I have bought stuff from him and find him to be very knowledgeable. Though I do not think the Blue Eyed Blondes have yellows as Vivid as he claims[ I have never seen one in the flesh though] I have noticed that sometimes the color of the eyes can be helpful in determining if it may or may not be a morph. I am hoping Kerby chimes in and ads his thoughts to this and also lets us know if his Ghosts have Blue Eyes? I have also heard good things about Mr Merker. Too bad there is not a more evident Hypo in the Cal Kings....can you please tell me what color your snake shows in between his scales? Does it differ any from other Cal Kings? Tom Stevens

Tom,
Like a stated before...the banded blue eyed blondes have BRIGHT yellow bands, especially the females. The striped ones, especially the males have a duller yellow coloration. I will get picks of my "so called" hypo and share in a bit. I wish I had a lavender albino to breed to my blonde male to see what they would produce.

Why is it when breeding lavenders to albinos, "hypo" looking babies sometimes appear? I think lavenders are more of an albino than a hypo and blondes are a type of hypo rather than albino (amel).

John Lassiter

Except for albinos, lavenders, melanistics, etc.. my cal kings do have blue eyes. Just take them out into the sunlight and away from indoor lighting and you will see.

My Ghost cal kings have blue eyes as well.

Kerby...

Ya know that kinda makes the name Blue Eyed Blonde seem a little......... attentiony??? Yes, I realize it is not a word but if all Cal Kings have Blue Eyes those snakes woulda been fine labeled as Blondes. No disrespect intended toward Mr Gebhard, after all I do not even know if he coined that name but you never know unless you ask.....and the answer you gave me makes me wonder why someone would ad eye color in a name of something specific if basically ALL those snakes have that eye color? Then again maybe when snakes which MAY indeed be Hypos appear they will have different eye color.....and that may help identify them. Time will tell........ Tom Stevens

But the "blue eyed blondes" are the only morph that has blue eyes...Kerby just stated that his lavenders, albinos and such do NOT have blue eyes...His ghosts do...
So I think blue eyed blonde is still fitting for the morph..
John Lassiter

That's what I get for trying to think straight when I had several beers in me........DOH! Tom Stevens
ps time for industrial stength coffee

..

The color in between the scales is light chocolate the same as the centers of the scales and the edges of the scales are slightly darker. I looked at a Davis Cal King (basicly like Kerby's Mendotas) and the interstitial skin was flesh colored. A normal Mendota (Kerby's are a true black-bellied melanistic morph of Mendota but I am talking about a normal black and yellow banded Mendota) I have and the interstitals were black.
Regarding Tim's Blue Eyed Blonds I have no doubt they can attain the yellow color he describes as I have seen a normal from Carlsbad that was that bright right out of the wild and Carlsbad is only about 5 miles as the crow flies from the Elfin Forest where Tim's came from. Which is why I think Tim's are either a hypo or Lavender that were bred from super-yellows that occur naturally in that area. That doesn't mean Tim's is compatible with other hypos or lavenders though. And not all the kings I've seen from that area have really bright yellow. Don't know how consistent what Lassiter was saying about males being brighter but the super bright yellow I saw from there was also a male.

Nice pic. Thanks Scott Glover

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Aaron, those are nice, that is for sure. I'm just not sold on the term hypo. Cal kings are extremely variable and are basically bi-color. Variable in the same locale, even here in Arizona where we do not have the variablility in cals like California. It is easier to see hypo in snakes that are tri-color.

I do believe that there is more (genetics) out there in cal kings.

Also, do you remember that nice chocolate and white cal king from 2 years ago? Now that was just about as pretty as the one pictured, almost look the same.

Thanks for posting the pic.

Kerby...

Aaron, those are nice, that is for sure. I'm just not sold on the term hypo. Cal kings are extremely variable and are basically bi-color. Variable in the same locale, even here in Arizona where we do not have the variablility in cals like California. It is easier to see hypo in snakes that are tri-color.

>>>Thanks, I understand your veiwpoint. I would not be able to state 100% they are hypo just that it's my opinion too.

I do believe that there is more (genetics) out there in cal kings.

Also, do you remember that nice chocolate and white cal king from 2 years ago? Now that was just about as pretty as the one pictured, almost look the same.

>>> I do remember that snake and the guy who gave it to me said he thought it was hypo too. It would be real intersting to see what that snake bred to a Merker would produce. Was it a male or female? I may have to let you borrow my Merkers so we can find out.

Thanks for posting the pic.

It would be nice to do some specific breeding projects to figure things out.

Kerby...

The story begins in the early 90's with a commercial collector named Danny Dorge, who is no longer alive. He was a very succesful collector of zonata and cal kings at the time, having been one of the few guys to collect Davis Blackbellies and anerythristic multicinta. Anyway, he had captured a really freaky looking cal king from western El Dorado County and shown it to Merker. That got the gears turning and G. subsequently flipped his own wierd looking adult in the early 90's. It was a big male that later was featured on the cover of one of the trade magazines. Merker and I decided to make a project of it and try to see what was really going on in El Dorado about 1994. During 1994 and 1995, we beat the daylights out of the foothills and probably caught about 200 animals during that period. Most of these were pretty "vanilla" looking animals; dark brown with cream bands. Some were lighter, tan with cream or yellow bands. Rarely, though, we would get wierd one. I remember vividly flipping my first real hypo in May of 1994. It was a pipsqueak male and he looked like he was made of wax. Pale tan and cream with red eyes and blue irises. He went on to sire most of the Blondes I produced when I was doing that. There hasn't been a season as good as '94 and '95 since and having most of the good habitat paved over for a Walmart or cineplex hasn't helped, so I don't know if you can catch one anymore.

That being said, there are a couple of things going on genetically with these animals and I don't know that's a simple recessive trait. The phenotype itself seems to be a form of tyrosinase-positive amelanism. However, there seems to be a sex-linked factor involved, as well. Only males get that feaky speckled look to them. Females are light, but it's a uniform color. When I bred my red-eyed male to a red-eyed female, maybe 25% of the babies would be the "classical" looking hypo. The rest: Normal looking with black eyes. So, who knows? I never was interested in outcrossing them, so can't comment on that.

While genetic traits like amelanism, hypomelanism, striping, pattern aberrancy, etc. are well-documented in coastal So Cal populations, the unique thing about the El Dorado County animals is that they are an inland population and disjunct from anything vaguely close to them. It would not surprise me to get all normal looking babies if somebody were to cross one of them with a coastal hypo, in other words. Probably a similar phenotype but different genetic trait.

Anyway, Merker is the only guy who can set you up with the "real deal" in terms of legitimate locality animals sired by wild-collected parents. If somebody wants, I'll see if I can dig out some slides of my wild adults and F1 litters, scan them, and post them. Wonderful snakes and seeing that photo brings back good memories.

And I would love to see the pics if you have the time.
Interestingly I have heard the Davis Kings also have a sex linked trait in that the male black bellies can be striped/abberrant or banded/abberrant but the females are always banded/abberrant. However I have a female from Ric Staub that is about 60-70% striped and I believe he said it was the first female he produced like that.

It was almost always the males that were striped. Though I beat my brains out in Davis between '94 and '96 and probably sawt about 50-60 Lampropeltis, I have only caught three Blackbellies, two males and one females. Both males I caught were partially striped (one, more-so) and the only female I ever caught was banded. That was the case pretty much across the board with the babies, too. The female Blackbelly I flipped never properly acclimated, so I released her at the end of the summer. The prettier of the two males I kept (and still own) and I bred him to several wild, normal-looking females from the same area. It is possible that Rick has gotten striped female babies but I don't know that he was working with Davis females. You would have to ask him about that. My feeling is that there are two things going on. The first: Hypermelanism. The second: A sex-linked trait which affects patterning. Their relationship to each other was always the mystery to me. I will dig through my slides and see about posting some images of those wild El Do Blondes and Davis Blackbellies, as well as groups of hatchlings.

Rick was pretty clear with me that I was getting pure Davis locality animals. I will take a pic of the female I got too.

This is the captive born female I got from Rick in 2002. Like you called them I think hypermelanistic is a more accurate description than melanistic and like Kerby said brown bellied is more accurate than black bellied. I would add that abberant should be added to the description making them Hypermelanistic Abberrant Brown Bellied Cal Kings although that is quite a mouthful for general conversation.

Definitely has some striping. My female is in the blue and I do not have a good picture. She is mostly aberrant with a little banding.

Just curious why they coined the word "black-belly" when they aren't black at all, they have brown bellies.

Kerby...

I bred a dark striped cali and a choc. striped cali last season that I collected in carlbad in 2003. They produced all dark young. 50% striped and 50% banded. Is your animal from Gerry hypo or lavender or are they synonomous.

The Merker is a hypo. Eric's post above details much more than I know about them. They are probably not the same as anything from Carlsbad as El Dorado county is several hundred miles from Carlsbad. Good to hear someone is working with the Carlsbads. They are a unique population in my opinion. I grew up about 20 miles from there and the amount of habitat lost to development is stunning.

>>>Just reread your post.

"I bred a dark striped cali and a choc. striped cali last season that I collected in carlbad in 2003. They produced all dark young. 50% striped and 50% banded."

>>>That's really neat. All dark in color but bandeds from stripers. I imagine every year you could produce different combinations from them.

Just for good measure here's the bright yellow chocolate striper male I collected in Carlsbad around 1999. His yellow is much brighter than the picture shows.

I spent about 12 hours in my snake room today, cleaning and then feeding. I am nuts about keeping my cages clean and my animals are well fed. I noticed movement on one of my racks and to my astonishment it was a carlsbad striped male that escaped last year. The animal was thin but not in bad shape considering. The snake is very similar to the pic. of yours!

That's a good feeling, Ive had that kind of thing happen though never after so long.

Anyone that is a poster here who will produce these this year?

If not does Gerald Merker have a website?

That should tell you how much I liked that pic of your snake

Rainer

but if any of you will produce them this year i am interested.