I am looking for a herper/field collector in the Southern California area -- San Diego, Orange County, Carlsbad, etc. -- that can track down and obtain a specific locale of California kingsnake for me. I do realize it is winter and they are all brumating, but when the spring comes around and they begin waking up, I would like to try to start searching for my project animals. I have been on a fruitless search for striped coastal phase Cali kings, which are the chocolate brown and yellow variety. I'm just not finding any on the market whatsoever -- not even banded coastals. I used to have a rare pure Carlsbad coastal pair with perfect stripes, and unfortunately lost them when I lost my collection a few years ago. This was the pair I had:
The chocolate and yellow variety are mostly found in coastal areas and areas with more vegetation, but can be found occasionally in sandy/rocky areas. Coastals are not as common out there as desert phases (black/white and black/cream), and are apparently not that common in the hobby as I guess there is less demand for them. But I have always liked them and I'm hoping to get lucky in finding a few. Here are a few more pics of what I am looking for:
I am looking for both genders, any ages/sizes. The striping does not have to be unbroken, and doesn't have to run the whole length of the body. Abberant is OK, just prefer if at least half of it is striped. The cleaner the sides are, the better (like in the pics). I may potentially be interested in a banded animal if it has rich chocolate coloring with bright lemon yellow markings. I also may be interested in a black animal if it too has bright lemon yellow markings (striped only in this case, no bandeds). No off-whites or creams, yellow markings only. If you are interested in doing this scout work, I will compensate you for your time and cover all shipping expenses. If you can manage to track down a really nice specimen or even a Carlsbad locale like the ones I used to have above, I will DEFINITELY provide appropriate compensation. If interested, please reply here, PM me, or e-mail me at
jennifer.harrison@hotmail.com . Thanks!