Whitewater Hypomelanistic Cal king

I had a really good night one September night in 2005 at Whitewater. It had rained the day before for the first time in months, so I was hoping I would do good this night. I had been hitting WW every weekend during this time and was only finding a few snakes on average, mostly baby Long nosed. On this night I found 11 snakes all together including a Rosy boa on Tipton, which is a strange place to find one. As I was driving on WW I noticed a small king on the side and couldn't stop in time. I slammed on the breaks, jumped out, and ran back. As soon as my light hit it I noticed is was brown instead of the usual black for a kingsnake this size in this area. This snake was a yearling. As found on the road. (click on photos to enlarge)

I collected it and continued road cruising. Every half hour or so I would stop and look at the little king. The brown coloration really had me puzzled. At the time I was thinking maybe someone let a king from another locality go here, but later I realized this kings pattern and white rings were consistant with this locality. Even the Cal kings with similar coloration are darker than this as juveniles. Later I found a DOR king on WW the same size as the hypo and photographed them together. This photo came out in Hubbs book on Common kingsnakes. Of course I'm very proud of that. lol First picture is taken with a DOR yearling from Whitewater, and the second photo was the hypo yearling taken in the sun.

In this area kings start out nearly black then fade to a dark brown as adults. I had found at least 15 kings on WW and the other surrounding areas over the years and none of the adults even reached this shade of brown. Here are some photo's of this king as a small adult.

That first picture was used on a poster for Cal king morphs produced by Diamondback trading cards. I still consider this my coolest find ever because its a rare morph of my favorite species. The only other hypo I've heard of from the region was found a couple of years later by Hellihooks in Morongo Valley. We wanted to pair them up but unfortunately, Jim's snake didn't make it through brumation. I think it was an old male. Last year I was able to pick up a male from the same general area and bred it to my female. Here are the hets. I held back a male to prove the gene out.