This probably doesn't matter to you, but most of the Newport looking kings you see in captivity are mixed with striped kings that originated in San Diego. A lot of them have the stripe running down the tail. With a real Newport, the stripe ends just before the tail. You also see a lot more yellow or light pigment on the sides in these captive born Newport's than you see in the wild. Here's a wild caught Newport I found this spring.


From what I've seen and learned from others its pretty rare to find one with a mostly solid brown belly. Most of the time if the belly is brown its only partially brown. I'm not sure about captivity, that might be different if they are selecting towards that. I keep my eyes open and rarely see good examples of true looking Newport's because everyone is more interested in mixing the patterns to get the strangest patterns they can create. BTW, I don't breed kings consistently and rarely have anything available, but here is a Newport I produced this year with a crazy pattern. This is F1 from L.A. Co.



Most of the yellow and black kings you see are juveniles before the black changes to dark brown. I've never seen a true black adult king with yellow. A lot of the kings you see in pictures that look black are actually really dark brown when you take them out in the sun and that includes most from the desert. I think I read in Hubbs book there are yellow and black banded kings in Arizona, but they might be really dark brown too. BTW, props to Doug for giving out accurate information. Good luck with your search.
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