Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is the small male I caught back at my parents place in AL the weekend before last. He has shed and eaten two meals. He's approximately 23-24" and the size of my index finger. Gonna worm him this weekend and he should be great.

**NOTE THE DIFFERENCES IN PATTERN ON THESE TWO INDIVIDUALS OF THE SAME SUBSPECIES FROM APPROXIMATELY 450 MILES APART**

Here is the male of the same size from Acadia Parish, LA. He has also shed and eaten twice. He DOES have flukes which will be treated promptly. His pattern is more of the "multispeckled look, instead of having the light crossbands like the AL individual.

The presence or absence of "bands" in speckled kings shows a rather unusual distribution. In Blaney's 1977 revision of the getula he shows a map with that distribution. I don't have it in front of me, but from what I remember, the even speckled patterns tend to occur along the coast and up the mississippi river valley. I know that snakes from the Texas coast (SE of Houston) are perfectly speckled snakes with no hint of banding, whereas the snakes inland and about 100 miles to the NW tend to show banding.

I also think the snakes from more wooded areas tend to show more banding than snakes from more open areas.

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Chris Harrison