Category: Old Shop

This compound morph results from combining the color mutations Amel + Caramel = Butter and the pattern mutation, Stripe. Color hues and shades & pattern are variable, but it is apparent that the Striped mutation has a color impact upon the Butter corn’s coloration, and that impact is one of enhancement.  I don’t recall ever seeing Striped or Motley Butter that was not more deeply yellow than Butter mutants without a pattern mutation.

The first compound mutation in corns, Snow corns are the finished product of pairing an Amel with an Anery.  Both base mutation phenotypes are obviously supplanted with different shades of white (no Amel or Anery traits showing). Pairing an Amel with an Anery yields 100% wild phenotypes (common corns) that are of course all Heterozygous (abbr. Het) for both Amel and Anery. In so much as both base gene mutations are inherited in simple recession fashion, approximately one out of 16 of the F² progeny will be a Snow.  Of course, there will be NO black on any snow corn that lacks the genetic impacts of other mutations.  Sometimes, black is visible in parts of the eye, but this is not melanin.  It is eye tissue whose density defies light reflection, so it appears to us to be black.  At this time, many breeders are changing the colors of Snow corns through the addition of other gene mutations that alter the mature phenotype. 

What to expect:
Since they have been commonly bred for so long, there is a wide variety of different color schemes in Snow corns.  As hatchlings, most are some shade of white with contrasting white or pink markings, but most end up being off-white with dirty white markings.  Pink can show through on adults and yellow is becoming a fairly common color in adult snows (not the carotenoid yellow that manifests through maturity from retention of carotenoids in their diets).  Such non-carotenoid retained yellow is sometimes mixed in the ground color, sometimes only in the markings, sometimes only in the boundaries of the blotches, and any combination thereof.

This compound morph results from combining the color mutations Amel + Caramel = Butter and the pattern mutation, Motley. Color and pattern are variable, but it is apparent that the Motley mutation has a beneficial color impact upon the Butter corn’s coloration, and that impact is one of enhancement.  I don’t recall ever seeing Striped or Motley Butter corns that was not more deeply yellow than Butter corns without a pattern mutation.

What to expect:
Expect  most neonates to have surprisingly low-quality yellow (compared to adults), and pattern on some may actually be brown for up to a year or longer.  I have personally never seen one retain non yellow colors, so be patient.  In six to 18 months, all other colors should transform to yellow.  The pattern mutation, Motley demonstrates its power when combined with butter by heavily saturating and otherwise improving the yellow – compared to non-Motley Butters.

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All snakes will be chosen for their rarity and/or unique beauty.

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Details

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ToDAY’s SNAKE of the DAY (Sat, Nov 3, 2012)

#110312

Striped Motley Sunglow

Female

d.o.h. 2011
37″ long on October 31, 2012

$225.00 shipped

This 2011 Striped Sunglow Motley is 37″ long and eating frozen/thawed adult mice.  She has not been cooled in preparation for the 2013 breeding season, but there is still time to do that.  She is most likely het for Stripe, so if you breed her to a Striped Sunglow, you should bet both Striped Motley Sunglows and Striped Sunglows. Some of her siblings were Butter Motleys, and it appears that she could be het for Caramel (ergo: Butter).

Many generations were spent in refining the beauty of the Sunglow Motley.  Their genetic mutation is officially Amel Motley, but they have been selectively bred toward the goal of deeply saturated red coloration and classically orderly Motley pattern.  For years, we were helpless to explain why the colors in this line were so deeply saturated and why they were redder than other genetic lines.  In 2009, one of our friends that wondered the same and conducted breeding trials to determine what caused the intense colors.  She concludes that SMR Sunglow Motleys possess the added mutation of what is sometimes referred to as Red Mask or Red Factor.  It is allegedly inherited in dominant fashion (it is a recently discovered mutation and is still poorly understood).  Once I validate her genetic inheritance findings, the price of Sunglow Motleys will increase, since they will undoubtedly become powerful genetic tools in deepening and saturating reds in other corn snake morphs.

This compound morph results from combining the color mutation, Caramel with the pattern mutation Motley.  As Motley does in genetic union with most other color mutations of corns, the aggregate appearance of this compound morph is certainly improved.  The mechanics of both base mutations are explained on the hyperlinked pages for Caramel and Motley.

Wow, what a beautiful corn snake.  Sometimes referred to as Hypo B (the second hypomelanistic mutation to be discovered), this one’s the prettiest ever.  Allegedly, the gene derives from wild-caught Okeetee corns that were caught on or near Okeetee Hunt Club.  The odd head pattern on most Sunkissed corns is very unusual for any corn snake mutation, but the older the corn snake hobby gets, the more we see such unusual things.  In some, the melanin in their pattern is sometimes “shattered”, giving the visual appearance of having dotted blotch outlines.  Some even have no discernible corn snake pattern.  Just semi-orderly dotted pattern that sometimes doesn’t even remind one of pattern saddles.  Since virtually every Sunkissed corn I’ve ever owned was less than friendly toward humans (polite way of saying, “watch out when ya reach for one“), it is safe to say that their human intolerance is a behavior associated with the mutation.

Enough of the odd characteristics of these beautiful mutants. If there is one negative stigma attached to this mutation, it’s surely the potential that the one you get may have a genetic defect sometimes called “star-gazer’s disorder”.  The is called a lethal mutation since effects of the muation are not advantageous to the homozygote.  Star-gazer’s causes the snake to have limited or aberrant control over balance.  Similar neural disorders have been demonstrated in many animal species, and sometimes the cuase is viral.  Also, the neural symptoms of this mutation parallel that of animals with certain parasites that retard balance control. Star-gazer’s in corn snakes it not a contagious disease or pathogen, so the only way your snake’s will get it is through genetics.  It is inherited recessively, so some people that swear it is not lurking in the genes of their snakes, cannot really be certain of that – without controlled breeding trials.  Only by breeding a suspect corn to a star-gazer homozygote or heterozygote can one determine the presence of the gene.  Ideally, if you have any corns that MAY have this genetic mutation, you should breed it to a known homozygote.  Even that is not proof positive, given that you must have at least 20 progeny (of which 100% are not afflicted with the disorder) in order to be reasonably assured that it’s not in your snake’s genome.  This mutation was discovered in Sunkissed mutants, but it is not linked to the Sunkissed mutation.  It has been reported in several other non-Sunkissed corns (mutant or not).  Hence, if you discover you have a star-gazer mutant, it is recommended that you restrict it’s genes to creating “control” snakes that can be used by others to determine the presence or absence of the lethal gene in their snakes.  Even though it is not transmitted like a viral pathogen, the danger of the gene inflicting many other breeding lines of snakes is likely and potentially disastrous, in the absence of breeding trials.  Such trials are under way here at SMR (and with many breeders) and if/when we determine that any of our snakes are carriers of this lethal gene, they will be euthanized.  BTW, if you think you’re safe because you have been breeding sunkissed corns (or any other corn snake type) for over four generations without seeing any homozygotes of the disorder, think again.  If your first Sunkissed corn (or Okeetee or other type) was het for this mutation, it could take many generations for you to make the discovery.  Since each snake hands one copy of its’ genotype to each of its’ progeny, potentially half of each generation could be heterozygotes.  If you (or your customers) continually bred those heterozygotes to non genetic cariers of the mutation, only part of their progeny would inherit one copy of the mutation.  If you were lucky in not seeing any sign of the gene in over four generations (or potentially unlucky, in this case), it does not follow that none of your snakes are carrying a copy of the gene.  Until you pair two of them with a copy of the gene, it will continue to hide in the family tree.  Several years ago, I bought three female Okeetees from a breeder that is now out of the corn snake trade/hobby.  They were sold as being het for Sunkissed.  I bred one of the females to one of my best Extreme Okeetees and sold the babies as Okeetees.  Two years later, a customer called me to ask why some of the Okeetee babies she produced from the pair of Okeetees she got from me were doing the loopy, corkscrew locomotive thing.  Because I had never produced a star-gazer homozygote, I naively ruled that out, but upon reviewing acquisition records, I identified that the parents of her mutants were the Okeetees het for Sunkissed.  I immediately tracked down the other two customers that had purchased some of those, advising them that those snakes could be carriers of the lethal gene.  I then euthanized the three adult female Okeetees I purchased from the other breeder.  This lethal gene could be in hundreds or thousands of corns right now, and they don’t have to be Sunkissed corns.  Hence, if you ever discover that you have the gene, advise all customers that purchased its’ progeny, and if you’re not going to use the carriers for producing TEST snakes for others, I recommend that you humanely euthanize them.  By essentially eliminating them from the gene pool, you have take an important step toward eliminating this horrible gene.

Mixing the Sunkissed mutation with other color mutations and with pattern mutants is never disappointing.  Except for the grouchy demeanor, I don’t recall seeing a single mutation compound I didn’t like.  I know you’ll have fun mixing and matching them with other corn snake mutations and morphs.

The first compound mutation in corns, Snow corns (genetically, Anery Amels) are the F² finished product of pairing an Amel with an Anery.  Both base mutation phenotypes are obviously supplanted with different shades of white (no Amel or Anery traits showing). Pairing an Amel with an Anery yields 100% wild phenotypes (common corns) that are of course all Heterozygous (abbr. Het) for both Amel and Anery. In so much as both base gene mutations are inherited in simple recession fashion, approximately one out of 16 of the F² progeny will be a Snow.  Of course, there will be NO black on any snow corn that lacks the genetic impacts of other mutations.  Sometimes, black is visible in parts of the eye, but this is not melanin.  It is eye tissue whose density defies light reflection, so it appears to us to be black.  At this time, many breeders are changing the colors of Snow corns through the addition of other gene mutations that alter the mature phenotype.

What to expect:
Since they have been commonly bred for so long, there is a wide variety of different color schemes in Snow corns.  As hatchlings, most are some shade of white with contrasting white or pink markings, but most end up being off-white with dirty white markings.  Pink can show through on adults and yellow is becoming a fairly common color in adult snows (not the carotenoid yellow that manifests through maturity from retention of carotenoids in their diets).  Such non-carotenoid retained yellow is sometimes mixed in the ground color, sometimes only in the markings, sometimes only in the boundaries of the blotches, and any combination thereof.

Striped Amel (no aka)
Most Commonly Used Name: Striped Amel
Mode of Genetic Inheritance: Recessive

Type: Double mutation compound (Stripe + Amel)

Combining the two recessive gene mutations, Stripe and Amel result in a beautiful compound mutant with rich colors.

A comparison photograph of a Striped Amel corn and a Striped Amel Motley corn are shown below, so you can see the main distinction between stripes.  In this image, you can see that the pattern schemes are essentially reversed.  The Striped corn on the left has relatively little pattern zones (striping) relative to overall color and pattern, compared to the striped motley on the right that has very little ground color zone.  The Striped Motley on the right essentially has a linear zone of ground coloration between conti

guous dorso–lateral striped markings.  The width of ground color zone between the dorso-lateral pattern stripes is the basic way to distinguish between Striped corns and Striped Motley corns.  BTW, Stripe and Motley are alleles of the same Chromosomal locus, but Motley is demonstrated as dominant over Stripe.

Combining the recessive gene mutations; Stripe and Anery combine to render these beautiful corns.  Adult males sometimes have earth tones and adult females usually stay two shades or gray.  Stripes tend to fade more in males than females throughout maturity (if they fade at all).

What to expect:
Both male and female hatchlings look alike (essentially gray or silver snakes with black or dark gray striping), but many of our males lose a noticeable amount of their stripes through maturity.  Some females will lose SOME of their stripe with maturity, but some do not lose any. As with most Motley or Striped mutants, eliminating of black color zones is common, so through maturity, you will notice a softening of dark coloration.  Belly should have virtually no color, but some can have gray or black mixed, but there will never be orderly pattern of any color and never checkering.  Like virtually all Anery corns, expect carotenoid yellow to manifest as they mature, beginning on the face and neck – extending tail-ward with maturity.