Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Let's get a little specific as I know conditions vary from specie to specie and from state to state. So.....

California Kingsnakes in Arizona at 5,000 ft elevation (like around my house). These cal kings are laying their eggs underground (assumption since I've never flipped any). At what temperature range do you think these cal king eggs are incubating at? Does it vary, or being undergound, is it constant? A lot of us have read books on captive breeding, nothing concrete here, BUT....80-84 degrees, high hunidity, 60-70 days to hatch for the captive breds. I can't imagine that those standards are mimicking nature.......... In my area, cal kings are laying eggs in the spring time (not always warm up here in the least).

My conclusions based on absolutely no facts (LOL): wild cal king snake eggs in my area are layed underground, are incubated at lower temps (70's???), and take longer to hatch (more than 60-70 days).

Comments and discussion welcomed from everyone>

Kerby...

I believe it snows around your place, every once in a while. Next time it snows you will notice in the mourning snow will cover the whole place, then in a short time, there will be areas with no snow. There are places the snow melts much much faster then in other areas. If you look, you will notice a pattern as to what melts the fastest. Consider, the air temps are about the same, so why do some areas melt faster then others. And why do some areas never hold snow?

You may have missed my conversation with ratsnakehaven, in one of the posts I mentioned a cave close to where he stays in Az. This cave is about the same elevation as you, 4800ft. In the cave, the air temperature is 80F year around. With that in mind, snakes do not have to go to deep before it gets to warm to conserve energy. Also, it means they can find a wide range of temps all without coming to the surface. In arizona, in all but the higher elevations, many areas are far to warm for eggs. So they do not have to place them in the warmest areas.

Also nature does not do the one temp thing, they place their eggs close enough to the surface that there is some fluction. Also, the eggs are never in moist areas, they are in dry and humid areas. Dry and humid is a very hard concept to understand. You may already understand it.

So eggs in nature are hotter in the afternoon, evening and at early night and cooler in the latenight, mourning up to a little after mid-day. Remember, mass lags behind the heat source.

To be trueful, I do not make a habit of digging up snake eggs, I have found many clutches of various species, but no longer purposely dig them up. So thankfully my numbers are not that high, but so far, they all had a common thread, dry and humid. With temps from low seventies to low ninties.

And yes, there are snake eggs that overwinter. Another long story, hahahahahahahaha.

I like your subject, and I would like to reinforce your thoughts, of the millions and millions of kingsnake clutches that are deposited each and every year, why are so few ever seen by herpers? The answer is easy, we are looking in the wrong places. And I am glad of that. FR

I have no, zero, zip field knowledge of snake eggs but turtles are another story. It isn't inconcievable that some snake eggs over winter particularly at higher elevations and northern climes. We see this with some northern populations of Clemmys muhlenbergii (I reject the new nomenclature) where both eggs and hatchlings occasionaly over-winter in the nest. Here as you stated for snakes the eggs are dry in the tops of tussocks and close enough to the surface water to stay at nearly 100% humidity. I've found other turtle species eggs in newly plowed fields on the Coastal Plain, dry sand bars in and along creeks, and in left over construction site sand piles each time near water. All terrestrial locations were in full morning sun and dappled afternoon shade with ground temps in the mid 80's.

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Bob Bull
1.3 L.g.getula MD Locality
2.2 L.g.g GA locality
2.3 L.g.g albino
1.4 L.g.g het albino
1.2 L.g.g P-het albino
1.0 L.g.floridana peanutbutter
0.2 L.g.f. het peanutbutter
1.0 L.g.f. N.E. axanthic
1.0 L.g.nigrita
1.1 L.t.hondurensis het hypo-melanistic
0.1 L.t.hondurensis hypo-melanistic

comparing turtle eggs to snake eggs is about a far apart as you can get.

Turtle eggs are about the weirdest bunch of things you can have, they diapause or not, they are laid, clear, banded, white, then hatch. etc.

Colubrid eggs are nice and simple, they are deposited, then develop until then hatch. How nice and normal. Larger varanids and turts and torts, should have been live bearers.

Some species, like subocs, lay both spring and fall(known by many), I have strong evidence that their fall eggs overwinter(seen it). Also, subocs, transpecos ratsnakes, commonly have two distint sizes of babies during the year. Many snakes do this many sizes of babies, specially around here. In other parts of the country, like SoCal, there is a distint wave of offspring. Again, how nice and clean.

But both turtles and colubrids are doing the same things, they develop techiques that will allow offspring a high percentage to do more then hatch, to achieve the real goal, to survive. After all, who cares if the eggs hatch, if the babies cannot survive. There is lots to think about here. For instance, neonate survival is practiced every year if not more, so it is one of the faster developing behaviors. FR