New king hatchlings.

[xelda]

This little one just hatched several days ago from Mexican black king parents. Both of the parents were solid black except for one or two white spots. There were two hatchlings like the one pictured above in the clutch of 11. The 12th egg hasn't hatched yet.

Here is the other one pictured with a clutchmate. Neither of them have shed yet, so it's not a very clear picture.

I was surprised with the results, but apparently some king snake afficionados have speculated for a long time that splendida and MBKs are the same.

 

[David_F]

Congrats on the hatchlings. Looks like a nice surprise.

 

[defour]

I was surprised with the results, but apparently some king snake afficionados have speculated for a long time that splendida and MBKs are the same.

Either that or the range of intergradation is big, and the results variable. That's a big, messy debate in any case. It'll be interesting to see what the patterned ones look like in a year or two; you might never know them from the more typical ones. Nice snakes, and congratulations. The only kings I've kept were MBKs, and they're still my favortite getulus.

Steve

 

[xelda]

David, it certainly is! I've been wanting to get nice splendidas for awhile, and now it looks like I've got some.

Steve, I wish I knew more about the background on the parents. I got the mom from a local source. (I wouldn't call him a breeder though.) And the male came from a no-name seller on the Kingsnake ads. It seemed like a random pairing, but apparently it was a good one. Only a couple of the babies actually turned out to look like the parents. Quite a few have orange checkers on their bellies which neither of the parents had, and some of the others have faded patterns reminiscent of splendida.

I only get to keep half of the babies though, since this was done on a breeding loan. Luckily, the two splendida look-alikes are among the ones I'm keeping.

 

[Beardo]

Hmm.....one of those hatchlings looks like a Desert King (L. getulae splendida) and the other solid black one looks like a Mexican Black (L. getulae nigrita)...very unusual that such typical examples of both subspecies came from the same litter. Got any pics of the adults?

 

[xelda]

David, there are pictures of both parents here: link.

The male has two white spots under his chin and a silverish sheen on his underside. The female has a bluish sheen and a couple of white spots on her underside. But besides that, both are pretty clean solid black.