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number 1 Tom Stevens

2 Tom Stevens

3 best I could do for now Tom Stevens

not sure if posted this one yet way behind on maintenance in my snake room from doing the show this weekend hopefully I will have time to get more into this later on or tomorrow Tom Stevens

If you count the bands on your albino, you'll see there is more than 30. I went on Keith Hillson's site and counted the numbers of bands on the banded specimens that I could accurately get a count on. On some of them, it is hard to get a count so I only included the ones I could accurately get a count on. Patternless and striped forms were obviously excluded. Six specimens off of Keith's site were counted and the band count averaged at 21.5. The highest was 26 and the lowest was 19. I then looked at WC specimens in my collection. The average band count amongst three specimens was 22. The highest was 24 and the lowest was 21. Then I looked at several dors I have in my freezer. Of the two I could count they averaged at 21.5 bands with the highest at 22 and the lowest at 21. Go to Bruce Means and Kenney Krysko's paper and you'll see they counted bands as well. Here are their results:

Geographic Variation.–There were significant differences in crossband numbers among all three populations (all P values < 0.001). The number of crossbands reaches its lowest value in the eastern Apalachicola Lowlands (mean = 11.5, S.E. = 0.87, range = 1–24, n = 97; Figure 15), followed by the western Apalachicola Lowlands (mean = 17.8, S.E. = 0.85, range = 1–24, n = 45) and panhandle (mean = 21.8, S.E. = 0.26, range = 14–31, n = 148).

It's rather interesting that yours has a much higner band count than that which is found in typical goini. In fact, the band count of yours is more similar to that of the Florida King. I looked at this specimen long enough and knew something looked different.

You can see bands to count??????
I don't....It is more of an aberrant, slightly patternless one on my screen......
But, thanks for the info on the band counts of goini and floridana.
John Lassiter

Oh wait.....I looked closer and I do see aberrant bands......
Sorry....
John

If you look close enough and realize what you are looking at, you can see the bands. They are are very narrow and not wide at all like typical goini. Tom wanted us to look closely at these kings so I did.

This reminds me of counting blotches on Emoryi and Meahllmorum Ratsnakes.
In my area of Texas there is an intergration zone between Meahllmorum and Emoryi.
Meahllmorum (Southern plains ratsnakes) have a lower blotch count and Emoryi (great plains ratsnakes) have a much higher band count.
But.....in my area I have found both. I have also paired up low blotch count parents and they produced both.
Another thing is the belly pattern or lack of (meahllmorum). Both were produced with matched up parents.
I don't see how color/appearance has anything to do with purity of a snake........Like we all said many, many times these goini are variable.
And....like I said....I don't have these to please anyone, but me.
If you don't like it don't buy one......Who is to say what is pure???
As a wise man once said...."snakes don't read maps"

John Lassiter

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