As some of you know I frequent Santa Catalina island (off of LA county) each year for the past six or so years and a couple years ago someone gave me a kingsnake that they had caught at one of the camps. She adjusted well to captivity and I've been looking for a locality mate for her. Unfortunately no mate was to be found. I ended up pairing her with my aberrant North San Diego County male king that I collected a few years ago from the near some condemned habitat.
About the same time I was asked to do a reptile presentation for a local elementary school and obliged. Part of the demo was showing the different colors and patterns of our native kingsnakes. I brought along the Catalina king as a representative of the banded morph, another female of the striped morph, and the aberrant king to show an anomaly type. I kept the male aberrant in a separate bag but put both the females in a tub. Both were well fed and I kept a close eye on them. Unfortunately not close enough. The female black belly striper turned out to be a male and they locked up before I knew they were even courting. The striper is a (mostly) black belly San Diego locality that a friend gave me which he found near his house in the Black Mountain area.
The show went as planned and I paired her up with the aberrant again the same week. A few weeks later my Catalina girl dropped seven healthy eggs which brings us to last week. All hatched out healthy and beautiful and, as I hoped, there were a couple surprizes and one stunner! The following pictures are the Catalina girl, the male striper and the male aberrant, and the babies. So, who's the daddy?
TL;DR Accidentally bred my Catalina Island female banded king with both an aberrant north San Diego County wild caught male and a striped black belly San Diego male from the Black Mountain area. Which snake fathered which babies?
Catalina Girl
Aberrant male from north SD County
Male Black Belly Striper from Black Mountain area in SD
Belly shot of accidental breeding partner
The Babies:
Some nice bandeds:
Higher than average band count, cool!
Baring, that's neat!
Then a newporter-like pattern! Where did that come from?!?
Thanks for the look! And yes, I'm looking for homes for most of them.
