Spring of 2006 was my best year for finding Cal king morphs and the rarest of them all was this Newport with an aberrant pattern. Most Typical Newport's have a broken stripe running down the back with aberrancies on the sides. This snake was still a Newport, but had an aberrant pattern to it. In late May 2006, So Cal was hit with a heat wave that reached into the 90's, killing the flipping season. Two weeks later, the arrival of a "June gloom" brought lower temperatures and a few snakes to the surface again. The day before, I had been scouting out some new spots when I discovered a few boards with a kingsnake under one. The next day I decided to hit one of my favorite spots to see by any chance I might find something cool. After lifting several boards with no luck, I flipped this beautiful California kingsnake. At first, it looked like a banded king with wider than normal yellow bands until I noticed a small amount of striping near the tail. Then I realized this was a Newport when I seen the tail was chocolate topped. As you can see, it was very dry by this time. The board the snake was found under. (click on the photos to enlarge)
Funny thing is, I hadn't noticed how different this Newport was compared to the one me and Don Huffman found a couple of months earlier. It wasn't until I got home and looked at it longer that I noticed there was very little striping on the animal. I was still new to Cal king morphs and today I would recognize the abnormality immediately. Only one other Newport like this has been documented in recent history and was found a few months before mine by my friend Josh Rosenstein. I consider my self very lucky to have found this snake. Here are a few more photos taken more recently.
When bred to a normal banded female in 2008, one out of 5 eggs hatched out another Scrambled banded Newport.
When bred in 2010 to a NP-LB Striped Mud morph, I got 3 typical Newport's and two normal banded. apparently the Scrambled banded morph is not a for sure shot every time and may be the reason why this morph is so rare in the wild.
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