What is a Brooks King?
This question comes up quite a bit as the name Brooks, or Brooksi is thrown around a lot when referring to Florida Kings in general. The Brooks King was originally believed to be a subspecies of the Florida King, or "Floridana". It has since been debunked so to speak, and all are considered Florida Kings. For the sake of the hobby we love so much, and our obsession with categorizing everything into nice boxes, we will break it down.
I, and many others reserve the term "Brooks" to describe Kings found in the extreme southern end of Florida usually in Dade County, but may extend to southern areas of Monroe, and Collier Counties as well. For the most part we think of them being South Dade Kings. These Kings typically display a lighter color, with an off white bone to bright yellow coloring. They also tend to have a higher band count of cross bars, and may almost look patternless as they age, and become more obscured.
Further north near the top of Florida, the Kings look like Chain Kings with some, or no speckling in between the cross bars. It is believed that the Florida Kings in between may be a combination of these two looks, usually referred to as Peninsular Kings. However some very bright Kings have been found in pockets thru-out all of Florida not just limited to the Southern extremities.
So in short today the term "Brooks" should be reserved for describing locality animals of extreme South Florida preferably Dade County, or descendants of wild caught parents from South Dade County.
Keep in mind that sometimes darker specimens are sometimes found the same area, or even under the same boards as the lighter ones. So these are generalizations, and not written in stone. I witnessed hunters bringing in bags of Florida Kings to the whole salers, and watched them separate the lighter ones as Brooks, and the darker ones as Peninsular Kings even though the hunter explained they were from the same basic area.
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The following was written by my friend Doug Mong.......
L.g. floridana were first described in 1892 and 1895 from holotype specimens collected in Orange County, and the later one by William Palmer in DeSoto County just southwest of Lake Okeechobee.
Then in 1919 Frank Blanchard examined and described these snake as L.g.floridana. One month later, the South Florida Kingsnake (L.g.brooksi) was first described and named by Thomas Barbour from a specimen found just southwest of Florida City which is now part of Everglades National Park in extreme southern Florida. It was thought that this "brooksi" form was a seperate subspecies of L.g.floridana only found in a relatively small area extreme southern Florida. They were distinguished from other Florida kings by their thinner and much higher cross-band counts, and higher amount of scale basal lightening (speckling), paler coloration (very light and/or yellow) and more "busy" and obscured sides. Sometimes it is even a bit difficult to distinguish the crossbars because of the high amount of light speckling in certain individuals. Those most often tended to be found more in the oolitic limestone rock lined canal bank areas as compared to the darker muck areas of agricultural environments like just north in the Palm Beach county areas of the southern Okeechobee sugar cane fields, etc... In those areas, the snakes are generally much darker and drabber looking, have less speckling, lower cross-band counts, and "blockier" side markings than the more southern "brooksi" form.
Good examples of the lighter higher cross-band count so-called "brooks" form were always the more highly prized phenotypes by old-school field collectors and other hobbyists wanting them years ago too. Then you have have the more "peninsula" form of Florida kings that starts to become intergraded and blended around Tampa on north across the state that starts to become influenced by the northern Eastern getula ssp.
This question comes up quite a bit as the name Brooks, or Brooksi is thrown around a lot when referring to Florida Kings in general. The Brooks King was originally believed to be a subspecies of the Florida King, or "Floridana". It has since been debunked so to speak, and all are considered Florida Kings. For the sake of the hobby we love so much, and our obsession with categorizing everything into nice boxes, we will break it down.
I, and many others reserve the term "Brooks" to describe Kings found in the extreme southern end of Florida usually in Dade County, but may extend to southern areas of Monroe, and Collier Counties as well. For the most part we think of them being South Dade Kings. These Kings typically display a lighter color, with an off white bone to bright yellow coloring. They also tend to have a higher band count of cross bars, and may almost look patternless as they age, and become more obscured.
Further north near the top of Florida, the Kings look like Chain Kings with some, or no speckling in between the cross bars. It is believed that the Florida Kings in between may be a combination of these two looks, usually referred to as Peninsular Kings. However some very bright Kings have been found in pockets thru-out all of Florida not just limited to the Southern extremities.
So in short today the term "Brooks" should be reserved for describing locality animals of extreme South Florida preferably Dade County, or descendants of wild caught parents from South Dade County.
Keep in mind that sometimes darker specimens are sometimes found the same area, or even under the same boards as the lighter ones. So these are generalizations, and not written in stone. I witnessed hunters bringing in bags of Florida Kings to the whole salers, and watched them separate the lighter ones as Brooks, and the darker ones as Peninsular Kings even though the hunter explained they were from the same basic area.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following was written by my friend Doug Mong.......
L.g. floridana were first described in 1892 and 1895 from holotype specimens collected in Orange County, and the later one by William Palmer in DeSoto County just southwest of Lake Okeechobee.
Then in 1919 Frank Blanchard examined and described these snake as L.g.floridana. One month later, the South Florida Kingsnake (L.g.brooksi) was first described and named by Thomas Barbour from a specimen found just southwest of Florida City which is now part of Everglades National Park in extreme southern Florida. It was thought that this "brooksi" form was a seperate subspecies of L.g.floridana only found in a relatively small area extreme southern Florida. They were distinguished from other Florida kings by their thinner and much higher cross-band counts, and higher amount of scale basal lightening (speckling), paler coloration (very light and/or yellow) and more "busy" and obscured sides. Sometimes it is even a bit difficult to distinguish the crossbars because of the high amount of light speckling in certain individuals. Those most often tended to be found more in the oolitic limestone rock lined canal bank areas as compared to the darker muck areas of agricultural environments like just north in the Palm Beach county areas of the southern Okeechobee sugar cane fields, etc... In those areas, the snakes are generally much darker and drabber looking, have less speckling, lower cross-band counts, and "blockier" side markings than the more southern "brooksi" form.
Good examples of the lighter higher cross-band count so-called "brooks" form were always the more highly prized phenotypes by old-school field collectors and other hobbyists wanting them years ago too. Then you have have the more "peninsula" form of Florida kings that starts to become intergraded and blended around Tampa on north across the state that starts to become influenced by the northern Eastern getula ssp.