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{product id=940}
This 2012 female corn is the product of crossing a Java corn with a Kastanie mutant. She is now 36″ long, eating frozen/thawed small adult mice. Her $195.00 USD price includes
The single recessive Kastanie mutation was discovered by Frank Schaub in Germany many years ago, but the Java corn is still–shall we say–undiscovered. It was named by a breeder in South Africa as a morph that had a distinct phenotype common to all examples of this line, but it’s inheritance is still unclear. Breeding trials are on-going, and we soon hope to identify how the “look” is inherited. IS IT a rendering of gene interactions (polygenetics) or a gene mutation? IF a gene mutation, is it Kastanie? Both morphs (Kastanie and Java) are in a small fraternity of corns with phenotypes that are similar to wild-type. Not that Kastanies cannot be easily seen in a crowd of common corns, but because they’re not a pattern mutation or an obvious and distinct color mutation like Motleys, Amels or Aneries, breeding them to other corns (especially wild-types like Okeetee, Miami phase, etc.) can result in progeny that can be somewhat mimics of wild-types.
This pairing in 2012 was done in an effort to help discover if perhaps Javas are actually Kastanie mutants. The jury is still out on this because this female (and virtually all of her siblings) has some strong Kastanie features, but more importantly she is NOT wild-type in appearance. Breeding a mutation like Kastanie to a non-Kastanie SHOULD render babies that are very similar to wild corns, but as you can see, this one is anything but that. It has the classic Kastanie feature of the orderly and more geometric Kastanie saddle markings that are often shorter than wild-types from saddle front to back. If Javas owe their “morph” features to an alien species (like perhaps Emory’s Rat Snakes Pantherophis emoryi) colors and patterns like we see in this F1 out-cross are possible when bred to gene mutants, VS. seeing the wild-type appearance. More breeding trials are obviously indicated.