Reptile & Amphibian Forums

...the "shout out post " below got me thinking and wondering what the general consensus here is concerning goini.
I'm not sure just how many examples Neill and Allen used to describe goini but I think it was less than a dozen???
Was there patternless ones used?
Do you think that what they were describing was indeed an intergrade of sorts and not what Krysko describes??
Who has the latest info? I'd appreciate any help here.
Thanks for the input.
:Mark

-----
Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

Your snake (in the pic) Kicks butt no matter what you call it. AS far as your real question I don't think I will say anything right now. I will watch all the fun first.

Later Jason

Mark its hard to say. I'm not privey to some of the data but I do know two things. Whatever they are/were they now freely integrade with adjacent populations. Even if they originated from different stock they have now been integrated into a larger population. That to me makes them a sub-species IF they can maintain a phenotypic identiy. Secondly, no way I'm calling them meansi!!!!

Look at that picture. You can breed an Eastern to anything you want, you aren't going to get patternless. You breed Florida type to Eastern you are never ever going to get patternless. You breed patternless to eastern, you get an intergrade that looks like an outer banks or some version of blotched. WHERE DOES THE PATTERNLESS COME FROM????????? It has to be it's own thing. I prefer to call it "Goini".

....if there were no patternless in the original description of goini then is that what it is??? lol.
You get my drift? I kinda feel that the patternless could be it's own thing, and much prefer goini to meansi but that is simply my preference after using it for so long.
Somewhere I have the original docs and I'm not sure they described a patternless. I'll have to check.
I know Sean and others have a better handle on the whole thing.
I hope to see a wild one in a few months...Wish me luck!
:Mark
-----
Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

hahahaha gotcha,,,,anyway i beleive neilandallen did indeed include patternless as a type (not sure been long time since i read it),personally imho the patternless are the true goini,blotched and striped as well and i also beleive they deserve ssp.status,,but on that note "the lumper" in me says they are ALL(getula) infact intergrades or were anyway at one timesome like imho l.g.goini have evolved into valid subs,and some will always show intergrade/parent ssp.influence,,sure would be nice to see more(patternless goini) in the hobby, that ones sure a beauty,,good luck with it,,,,,,,thomas davis

I agree that the Apalachicola kings intergrade with easterns where they come in contact. I don't believe the simple difference between a pure Apalachicola king and an intergrade or an eastern is as simple as whether it is patternless or not. I view the patternless variety as being a specific pattern phase of "goini", kind of like the striper Cal kings vs banded. I tend to think of the Apalachicola kings are a variety of eastern king anyway, like the Outer Banks kings, or maybe in the same way you would view a brooksi vs a floridana. Regardless of that, I've seem 2nd generation floridana x goini that were patternless. It seems to me that patternless is not the true mark of pure goini.

They used 9 snakes for their discription, all of them were the blotched phase, with 15-17 body bands, and 5-6 bands on the tail.

As far as whether "goini" or "meansi" are valid, I think this article by Kevin Enge pretty much says it all....
www.kingsnake.com/easternkingsnake/articles/MosaicKing.pdf
-----
Ace

ace-interesting article but i don't get what you mean that it 'says it all' as far as the validity,etc. of goini...also for all we know-someone may have released one,two,or more goini kings on edisto island/had some captives escape from nearby,right?also those 'mosaics' bear a resemblance to the abberrant easterns that apparently come from south ga.which obviously look very goini-influenced..neill & allen's type specimen did'nt have to be what came to be known as 'ideal'...it just had to be different/unique enough from anything else found up to that point,to justifiably be described as a new subspecies-right?....i.e. their type specimen came from the 'fringes' of what has come to be known as the heart of goini's range,according to studies done since...the original specimen hails from where it looks like you start to get some nominate influence-the banded/'blotched' pattern,and less 'interband lightening'(amount of light coloration on scales between bands when bands are present)....wow.anyway,this is a pretty orange girl i picked up 'for a song' just last fall,and my male that gets to tag that pretty,thick,(mostly)patternless thang once her daddy lets her out of the yard,lol.....uh yeah sorry about that.

The article shows how the "goini" trait can be produced within an Eastern Kingsnake population. What's in the article is, as you point out, very similar to what is seen in and around the Apalachicola region. A surrounding population, similar to mosaic Kings, breeding and causing a more centralized population
of reduced pattern, or even patternless snakes. What I find interesting is how few breedings it took to achieve it. Admittably, this would be an accelerated instance of what would/could occur in the wild, but still shows how one pattern variation can lead to other very different patterns in very little time.

P.S.- Very nice snakes!!!
-----
Ace

Hey Ace, thanks for the great info! That pic in Kevin's article is fantastic, it looks like a "goini" with reduced blotches.

then patternless thayeri must be their own sub and patternless cali must be their own sub and lets not forget patterned nigrita(not solid black) they must be their own sub. A pattern or lack of, is just a variation of a sub-species,it does not necesarily make a separate sub-species. Look at the difference between blairs and alterna they were once thought to be separate.

John you will never get a eastern king out of two patternless goini. For that matter I have never seen a eastern king come out of a real blotched king pair. Not what some people have that look like wide banded easterns but the blotched kings with the speckling in the dark bands and the really wide bands like in the Florida snake book with the Glades on the cover. Yeah baby those Goini. Those few and far between. Now a Blair's phase breed to a blairs will throw some alterna phase and vise versa.

Later Jason

I'm staying with Alan Tennant's version about the apalachicola lowland (goini) patternless/striped/blotched/banded being just a variation of L.g.getula, until another qualified field herpetoligist convinces me otherwise.

Come on man... that's it. I know for me it would take 4-5 real herpers to change my mind. I am to stubborn. LOL

Later Jason

You are stubborn, but you're easy to deal with, so be stubborn as you want, and i'm sure a even a qualified field herpetologist with a PHD could learn a thing or two from 4 or 5 regular herpers,lol!

LOL Nice pic man.

later jason

Unfortunately I believe that the problem with the Goini is that they where described with poor examples of the sub and the sub is being breed out by Easterns. The logging that went on in that region is what I believe allowed the Eastern Kings to move in kind of like the Everglades rats and the Yellows in S. Florida. Man walked in and changed the habitat from extreme old growth with what ever it took to allow the Goini to be supreme predators to what is there today that is allowing the Easterns in.

Over on a different forum about field herping at a dot com someone posted pics of old growth pine forest. I looked at the pics and realized that even though I have stood next to a old growth pine or two I have never been in a forest of old growth. I heard a figure at a CHS meeting that attributed 2% of all the forest in Illinois to be old growth and the rest of the state has been clear cut at one time or another... My god does anyone else have the same kind of info for their state??? What's worse is the 2% is not continuos...

So is it any wonder that the Goini that you hear about being collected in the 70's were found mostly by guys working for logging companies. One guy in particular was said to have gotten most of his animals in this way but I can't remember who.(anybody??) If the habitat is destroyed where are the specialized snakes for that habitat going to go??

Into the history books...

Later Jason

I just saw it was your post in that other place. Can you post those pics on here for the less fortunate. Really impressive pics by the way. The most trees I have ever seen like that with in a mile of each other was 2.

later Jason

pics courtesy of forest history society and steven f. austin univ....reproduced from lawrence s. earley's book titled 'looking for longleaf'.

n/m

I think the 2% thing works for the entire country as well.
:Mark
-----
Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

Hey Mark

I think Goini or Meansi are not what they were in the past. I think the striped animals and the patternless animals are glimpses of what once was. I look at those Axanthic GoinixBrooksi crosses Brandon O. is selling and that male is simply stunning! Ironically he looks as Goini as anything Ive seen. Scary almost when you think about in what a short time it takes something to reseamble one of the founding breeders.

Keith
-----

Here is a pic of Brandon Osbornes Axanthic GoinixBrooksi. I think its a generation or 2 removed from the original hookup. I dont really like these types of animals but this snake is pretty damn cool looking and Im glad Brandon represented it honestly. Just goes to show that patternless or even striped animals pop up even in these unnatural intergrades. I bet anyone woulda thought this snake is all Goini as it doesnt show a lick of Floridana in it (at least to me anyway).

Photo by Brandon Osborne

-----

There would be no reason for Goins to describe a new snake based on “blotched” intergrades in the region between the well known “Florida” king and the “Eastern”.
The patternless trait, weather Goins actually collected one or saw a photo, dead roadkill, preserved specimen or based on local awareness, warranted the description of something that clearly did not fit into either the Eastern or Florida. There was something else there. That is what he was the first to describe.
I contend that the true Goini is basically extinct,
that all snakes showing the trait are descendants and intergrades of the original genetic line.
I believe the true Goini is the Patternless Kingsnake, and selective breeding for
that trait would eliminate the blotches that are the tell-tale signs of intergrade.
I do believe there is still enough to work with to selective breed for the resurrection
of the relic.
Imagine you are intrigued by the thought of owning an ancient Roman fighting dog,
the Molossus. They were so intergraded and selectively bred to produce other breeds
that the origional dog was lost. They are extinct, but they were used to develop the
Neopolitan mastiff, Boxer, Bulldog, etc. The relic genes still exist in those breeds.
It would be possible to selective breed to produce the Mollossus, and with further refinement have the breed eventually recognized by the international dog breeding groups as a true breed. That's what I would hope to see with the Goini, that ancient North Florida fighting snake. I believe Goins was the first to recognize this belief, hence warranting the description.