High Kerby, There is too distint reasons for this, if I can remember correctly.

One, I believe I have some lines of kings in the old days that had orange on the bellies and sides, much like lots of eastern kings from the southeast. This disappeared very quickly.

Two, its also caused by a bacterial infection(suedomonis)(sp) infection between the layers of the skin. As mentioned already, it disappears after a shed. If it becomes systematic, after a shed, all the scales over the body will appear wrinkled and pinkish. With the ventrals the worse. The individuals appear to be in lots of pain when they crawl. While very nasty looking, it was never fatal and normally just cleared up. When this systematic infection happened to my kings, it appeared a week or so, after breeding them out from hibernation and before their first cycle.

Once I learned not to hibernate them, I never saw this again. I believe, its a product of stressful cooling and not cooling in itself. As in, I was not cooling them properly, too cool, too long, too dang something.

I believe the kings that had real orangish coloration as neonates were a type of CAl desert king. That trait was lost in the winds of albinism. Cheers

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