Reptile & Amphibian Forums

First, the greenish tint to the picture surprised me. The "green" was really more yellow than it shows. I found this little DOR in Tucson across from the Saguaro National Park. We are near the edge of Cal King range but this is really Spendida territory. Do any of you folks have guesses about this guy? It looks like a natural intergrade to my eye but I don't have much Kingsnake expertise.

Seriously, I agree with you, it looks like a cali x spendita intergrade to me as well...and a damn nice one to boot. That's a shame.

Will

I gotta be honest, if it was alive, he would be in my snake room. I'll be keeping a special eye on that area.

I'm still under-caffinated this morning...yawn.

Will

I have seen snakes like that around the Tucson area. The problem in that area is that there is tremendous variation in kingsnakes and finding a "locality" doesn't mean you will find another like that.

I picked up a small king like that a few years back, and as it grew up, the solid white areas were gradually stippled with black and it grew into a much less attractive adult. Unfortunately, I never photographed it before it died.
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Chris Harrison

That's too bad. I had always heard that Spelndida don't undergo color changes as they age. That seems to indicate intergrade then...unless Speldida do change with age.

Its very clearly, L.g.speedwayensis. Seriously, cal kings in and around the tucson area are a combination of, Cal king, from the north, yuma style cal kings from the west, splendia type kings from the south, then throw in some melanism(all black individuals of all of them)

That king in the pic, will get very dark when older, to bad, as they have very nice babies.

I have seen banded kings as far east as San Simon. Of course pure splendia types are common in the green valley area.

So dozens of years ago, we coined the term "speedwayensis" because most of these kings are not the others but intergrades of all of them. FR