Why does my snake have a 3rd colour?

[AlexPan]

Hey every 1. I got a Banded California King snake (brown and yallow) female but, for some reason it got a few inches of orange clother to the tail on it stamach. Does it poot hir into three colour category? or she is crossbreded with some other colour of snake? Thanks every one.

[Will]

Cals do not produce any red pigments, thereby, orange is not a 'natural' color for a Califonia King. Do you have a picture of it...? If it's red, it could be from a rash of some sort, which you would want to get looked at by a vet.

[chuck911jeep]

What happend with my female Alex? Can you send me a pics of this 3rd colour?

[Katt]

Cals do not produce any red pigments

Cali-kings do produce yellow though. And this "orange" he may be seeing, might just be very intense yellow.

[Oliverian]

I have a bit of that as well on my male cali, two of the belly scales are a pretty intense orange. It looks natural though, and I think it's probably like Katt said, just an intense yellow.
-TammyR

[Linds]

Hmmm... if the snake did not have it, I would say there is a possibility it could be a bacterial infection. Although snakes can develop more colours as they age, it is still important to rule that possibility out. Like Justin said, pics would definitely help.

[MouseKilla]

I didn't know that cal kings didn't have red... My limited understanding of snake genetics led me to believe that all snakes carried genes for three different pigments to varying degrees. Maybe cal kings just tend to show less red but still produce erythrin?

[AlexPan]

I will make a pic of my snake tonight. I gess its just of hir ageing cause she is really big 5 1/2 feet long and is a few years old. Thanks every 1.

[Will]

My limited understanding of snake genetics led me to believe that all snakes carried genes for three different pigments to varying degrees. Maybe cal kings just tend to show less red but still produce erythrin?

This I'm not sure of this either, but I was thinking maybe they have the ability(like most other species) to produce erythrin, but through the ages, it has been bred out, so that at this point, no (known) indivdiuals are even het for erythrin. If there were hets out there, or if they were able to produce erythrin(even to a limited degree), I would think it would've somehow been isolated & selectively bred by now - especially with such a common species, but as far as I know, there are none that show that trait. Perhaps it still in the 'code', but has been completely shut off. Without some sort of new fangked HighTech gene analyzing machine(or some undiscovered Hets), I doubt you'd ever know for sure though.

[lanceinhispance]

my snake had something like that but then he shed it away