A while back this topic was in the mainstream of thought with a lot of the major corn breeders around, so I compiled some of the emails together into a single file for reference. Since this has again popped up in a discussion on the BOI, I felt it would be worthwhile to post that file here for reference.
Subject: piebald / calico
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 18:13:39 -0800
From: Tim Rainwater <[email protected]>
Reply-To [email protected]
Organization: Rainwater Reptiles
To: [email protected]
Hi Rich, this is Tim Rainwater
I just got an email from Adam Song in NY and he forwarded me an email about the piebald / calico corns. I am very interested in finding out any info you have on them. After looking at the email, I don't know either of the other gentelmen mentioned. I didn't buy them from either of them. I was not told that this could even be a problem when I bought them. I did have the entire group I bought checked out by my vet here in town. Just a routine check that I have done on everything that comes in. There was nothing to be found. Two of the snakes had blisters when I got them, but within a month the blisters were gone and have not come
back. This has been two years now. I figured this was because I keep the cages super clean. I think the skin may be sinsitive or something like that. The ones I have are also lively and feed great. I haven't lost any of them and none have gotten weak that I have noticed. I am now raising two generations of them since I got them and have not seen any problems. I have several that have the white markings and they have never had the blisters. Are you sure we are talking about the same bloodline or even genetic mutation? If so I am very interested to figure it out. I call them calicos because I hatched out a piebald corn
in 98. One that looks just liek the piebald ball pythons and it hatched that way. This is what I think of when I think of piebald. I hope to line the possible hets up right next year and prove the gene genetic.
Thanks tim
===================================================
Subject: Re: ? about the Piebald Corn Snake
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 21:27:27 -0700
From: Bill Savary <[email protected]>
To: Rich Zuchowski <[email protected]>
Hi Rich,
I'll try to provide some answers to the points you brought up.
>Hello,
>
>A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to a gentleman by the name of Adam
>Song in New York. He mentioned that he had purchased some juvenile
>Calico corns (the name now applied by Tim Rainwater to the Piebald Corn
>snake you were (are?) working with). In this discussion, Adam mentioned
>that Tim told him that the blistering effect noted in this line was
>apparently caused by poor husbandry (lack of cage cleanliness) of the
>original stock. He mentioned that it has been discovered that taking
>care to keep the animals in a much cleaner environment reduces or
>eliminates this condition in the animals.
The original wild-caught female piebald had scars from the blistering that must have accompanied her depigmentation, which had occured while she was still in the wild. All specimens that we saw undergo the depigmentation also showed some degree of blistering - in direct corolation with the amount of discoloration. Blistered areas on a couple of the snakes were examined for causitive agents, but none were found. The best guess we were
able to come up with was that the blistering was a manifestation of an autoimmune response to pigment or to pigment-producing cells. Only one indication of possible environmental factors affecting the blistering was noted - on one female, the depigmentation, and hence the blistering, seemed to be more severe at warmer temperatures. This was on a female that
underwent almost total depigmentation, and the process was consistent with heightened autoimmune response at warmer temperatures. Cleanliness of caging does not appear to be an issue. My wife is a microbiologist/med tech., and is extremely cautious about hygiene issues in the animals she keeps.
>Since I am certain Tim has not had these animals long enough to
>determine something like this, I am assuming he has gotten this
>information from you.
No, he didn't get any such information from us.
> ......................I would like to know if you can provide me with
>any further details. If the coloration of this animal can be obtained
>without blistering prior to the manifestation, I would likely be
>interested in obtaining some specimens myself to work with. Also, has
>there been any headway in getting this effect to manifest itself earlier
>than the originally mentioned 3 year time period?
The onset of depigmentation is synchronous with the snake reaching breeding age. You could probably speed up the process by keeping the snakes warmer and feeding them more heavily. However, this could accelerate any autoimmune responses, hence defeating your efforts at minimizing blistering.
>Is Tim Rainwater now the sole source for these animals?
We gave a small breeding colony to Warren Carbonel, and at last contact he was having some success at reproducing the trait. This was some time before Tim Rainwater got his specimens. Unfortunately, I no longer have a means of contacting Warren. If you can locate him, he may be able to provide you with information or specimens. We kept no piebalds for ourselves, so we are out of the business with them.
>And lastly, does a mother and father exhibiting this trait produce 100
>percent babies that also exhibit this trait?
No. We never got to the point of being able to produce piebald offspring in a predictable manner. We could produce litters in which the effects were sure to show up, but not in predictable percentages, and nothing close to 100%.
One other point to keep in mind - depigmentation was only one of the effects. Some would suddenly start growing weak to the point that they could not kill prey, and eventually were unable to eat or drink.
The symptoms were in some ways similar to lupus in humans - which primarily manifests in females, onset starting at sexual maturity. Depigmentation can be the most obvious indication of onset, but a host of other symptoms can also be present. Lethality follows the same pattern, as well. Lupus, of course, is an autoimmune disease.
>Thank you for your time and any help you can give me.
Any time. I do hope someone pursues the issue of this form of "piebaldism" and comes up with real answers. If you do get any specimens and work with them, I hope you share your findings.
If you have any other questions, or care to swap ideas on the topic, please feel free to contact me.
Bill
===================================================
Subject: Re: ? about the Piebald Corn Snake
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 22:22:53 -0700
From: Bill Savary <[email protected]>
To: Rich Zuchowski <[email protected]>
>Bill,
>
>One more question (actually two). Did Tim Rainwater buy those animals
>directly from you? If not, do you know where the animals NOT sold to
>Warren Carbonel went to?
>
>Thanks again for you help.
Rich,
The animals Tim got came from us - a friend/neighbor of ours (Larry Sedrick - and I may have spelled the last name wrong) brokered the sale. The ones Warren got we gave to him for free just so that someone else would also be working with them. About four or five years ago I went to the San Diego breeders show and sold a couple of the siblings of the first captive-born
piebald, and I have no idea who the buyer was. That, by the way, was the first time we "officially" used the term calico to describe them. We had used the term between ourselves prior to that, but had not marketed the animals under that name or published the name before the San Diego show.
Bill
===================================================
Subject: Re: ? about the Piebald Corn Snake
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 07:55:40 -0700
From: Bill Savary <[email protected]>
To: Rich Zuchowski <[email protected]>
References: 1 , 2
> Thanks for the info. I've been reading over Dr. Bechtel's book where he
> mentions piebaldism and he mentions a name Julian Cowles. On the
> website where I originally read about the piebald there is a Jillian
> Cowles. One and the same? Then in Bill Love's manuscript there is
> mention of Dwayne Collins. Would you mind straigtening out who's who
> here? In case you are wondering, I'm in the process of working on an
> online corn snake book and I want to put something about the
> piebald/calico corn in it. I'm kind of picky about details and would
> like to get everything exactly correct.
OK. A brief history is in order. Dwayne Collins was the "original"
owner of the wild-caught female piebald. The quotations are on
"original" because I don't think he actually caught her, but bought her from whoever did. Dwayne bred her with a normal corn, and sent some of the offspring to Ernie Wagner, and kept others for himself. Both Ernie and Dwayne tried breeding the offspring to see if they could produce more piebalds, but gave up after a couple tries only produced normal-looking babies. Ernie got rid of his stock, and Dwayne directed his interests elsewhere. I think Bern Bechtel may have also gotten some
of the offspring from Dwayne, and followed the same path that Ernie took.
Dwayne was a good friend of ours here in Tucson, but wound up in some serious legal trouble for which the government relocated him for a number of years to a federal facility in Texas. During a brief "grace period" before leaving the state, he was given a few days to wrap up his interests, at which time he sold the piebald and a couple offspring to us. Unfortunately, when Dwayne was finally able to return to Tucson, he was unable to cope with circumstances in his life, and died shortly after his release.
Through a mutual friend (Dave Hardy), Bern Bechtel heard about Jillian's success in producing another generation of piebalds, and he got in touch with her. He was in the process of writing his book, and had a bunch of questions. He and Jillian had several telephone conversations, exchanged letters, and she sent him some photos. She was a bit miffed when she saw the book and found out that he refered to her as a guy and renamed her "Julian". Bern has caught some minor flak for it, and there's a couple people in our herp society who now insist on calling Jillian "Julian" just to tease her.
Back a while Bill Love was in touch with us gathering some of the same information you are interested in. I think he had known Dwayne, and knew of the early attempts at producing piebald offspring.
Hope this helps out.
Bill
===================================================
Subject: Re: Calico corn history
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 19:23:50 -0700
From: Bill Savary <[email protected]>
To: Bill Love <[email protected]>
CC: Rich Zuchowski <[email protected]>
Hello,
>>>>
I've sent you this copy of my current correspondence to help explain the calico corn controversy from my viewpoint as I've been doing with Rich Zuchowski recently. PLEASE let me know how you feel I should proceed to best amend the error I made until a revised version of THE CORN SNAKE MANUAL eventually happens. Thanks, and I apologise for any inconvenience this has possibly caused you.
<<<<
I'll try to answer some of the questions and clear up misunderstandings. Please feel free to ask for clarification in anything you have doubts about.
Meanwhile, don't worry about any errors - no harm has been done and no inconveniences have been caused.
First, as far as the blistering and depigmentation - blistering has ONLY been observed in conjunction with depigmentation. It seems to appear in at least some degree whenever the depigmentation occurs, and the moe severe the depigmentation, the more severe the blistering. In those siblings of the piebalds that do not manifest depigmentation, no blistering has been observed. However, other effects have been observed, such as severe and sudden loss of strength to the point of the animals being unable to kill prey, or eat. A large proportion of the siblings, however, showed no symptoms at all.
The hope I had for the possibility of a strain without the lethal effects (a slim hope, though) is that some individuals seemed to "stabilize" after some depigmentation occured, and the blisters ceased appearing. In fact, the original wild-caught female had scars from where blistering had occured, but during the entire time she remained in captivity no new blisters occured, and her pigmentation did not continue to change.
>>>>
>Thus far, Tim hasn't responded to the evidence I provided him that HIS
>animals are one and the same as those that Bill Savary is describing.
<<<<
Tim's calico corns are the ones he purchased from us through a friend and neighbor of ours, Larry Sedrick. He does, however appear to have an unrelated piebald corn that may be an actual true piebald. I believe he has only one such specimen, and is keeping it seperate from the calicos.
>>>>
>> I just got home from a very late Miami export run, thus the late
>> reply. Yes, Jillian Cowles is the significant other (I don't know
>> what their exact relationship is) of Bill Savary, and she's the same
>> one who was misspelled / missexed in Bechtel's book, and is also the
>> source of Tim Rainwater's strain -- not the the new 'piebald' one of
>> which only the one deformed one exists; the older strain is the one I
>> mean - the one he's calling 'calico', so as not to confuse it with his
>> new 'piebald' strain of which his single kinked one is his only one.
>> Clear as mud now?
<<<<
Correct on all points. For whatever it's worth, Jillian and I have lived together for about 23 years, and accept the periodic accusation of being husband
and wife.
>>>>
>> CALICO (PIEBALDISM)
>>
>> Piebaldism is a generic term for abnormal pigmentation results in
>> variously sized white areas replacing part of the usual color and
>> pattern. In some individuals the white areas may dominate most of the
>> body, leaving only tiny telltale spots and flecks of red, yellow, and
>> black. Other specimens display unusually enlarged white borders to
>> the dorsal blotches with additional scattered unpigmented splotches
>> over their lengths.
>>
>> Piebaldism was first noticed by us in a female specimen of Elaphe
>> guttata in the private collection of Dwain Collings of Tucson, Arizona
>> in the mid 1980s. It was reputedly collected in the Florida Keys.
>> The white blotches did not cover more than about ten percent of its
>> body as best as we recall. It produced some normal-looking F1
>> offspring, which were raised and bred together and back to the mother
>> in a cooperative venture between us and Bern Bechtel, among others,
>> during the 1980s. Both of our efforts resulted in only normal-looking
>> progeny after two years of crossing the “hopeful gene carriers”
>> amongst themselves. As the trait appeared not to be inheritable, we
>> gave up and dispersed the “hopeful hets” as just captive-bred normal
>> corns. It seemed to be a potentially exciting trait that just wasn’t
>> meant to be. At least that’s what everyone thought at that point....
>>
>> Jillian Cowles in Arizona continued the project longer than anyone
>> else, eventually demonstrating with some of her F2 generation that a
>> built-in time delay of 2 - 3 years exists before the piebald effect
>> starts to manifest itself. When it finally did, white splotches
>> appeared, sometimes gradually, but other times immediately like the
>> switching on of a light when the skin was shed. It has virtually
>> always been accompanied by a blistering distortion of the scales at
>> those sites that seems to be a function of the pigment disruption
>> process.
<<<<
Up to this point, it looks good.
>>>>
>>This has even occurred in non-piebald offspring of that
>> bloodline, which leaves hope that it can be bred out of the strain to
>> leave healthy corns with only the highly variable color anomaly
>> intact. The delayed onset of the whitening until after maturation,
>> combined with the fact that it has occurred mostly in females,
>> curiously parallels the effects of a human condition called lupus,
>> including its occasional fatal results. Jillian and Tim Rainwater are
>> currently working on further breedings to attempt to separate the
>> color mutation from the deleterious aspects of this strain.
<<<<
As noted before, blistering was only observed in conjunction with depigmentation, but other effects occured without depigmentation. Also, at this point, Jillian and I are no longer working with the strain.
>>>>
>> Tim refers to corns of this strain of piebaldism as ‘calico’ to avoid
>> confusion with a new and unrelated corn that he hopes to cultivate
>> over the next few years.
<<<<
Correct. The strain was first refered to as Calico when we acquired the wild-caught female from Dwayne, but probably the first time any of them were marketed as Calico was at the San Diego show about 5 years ago when I sold a few normal looking offspring which were siblings of the first captive-produced piebald.
Hopefully this helps. Feel free to ask more.
Bill
====================================================
Subject: Re: Calico corn history
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 21:25:47 -0700
From: Bill Savary <[email protected]>
To: Bill Love <[email protected]>
CC: Rich Zuchowski <[email protected]>
Hi again,
I just got off the telephone with Larry Sedrick, the guy who brokered the deal when Tim Rainwater bought the calico/piebald corns from us. It appears that our discussions have upset Tim. According to Larry, Tim has suggested that he wants to sell the snakes back to us. For the same reasons that we initially decided to sell the snakes (lack of space, lack of time, and not up to the frustration involved in the project) we are not interested in getting them back. If either of you know people who would be
interested in taking on the project (with full knowledge of what it
entails), you may want to point them toward Tim. Our original sale was 9 or 10 animals, three of which showed depigmentation, for $500.00. This sale was brokered through Larry, who may or may not have added a mark-up (I've never asked him about this). I don't know how much Tim may want for the animals, but if he's really thinking about washing his hands of them, the above information may help.
Bill
==================================================
Subject: Re: Calico corn history
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 10:47:02 -0700
From: Bill Savary <[email protected]>
To: Rich Zuchowski <[email protected]>
References: 1 , 2
Rich,
Don't worry about it. I think it's important that the issues
surrounding the piebald/calico corn be known and publicized so that legitimate work can be done on the strain without people getting drawn into it under false pretences. You were 100% correct in passing the information on to Adam Song. Had he been in touch with me, I would have done the same. Both Jillian and I have tried communicating with Tim on many of the issues I've discussed with you and Bill Love, but we've never gotten him to respond to our messages or letters. I think the current discussions have gotten him to at least confront the realities
of the piebald/calico breeding, and even if he's not happy with the
reactions he's getting, the overall situation should improve. I do hope someone pursues working with this strain. I think there's a lot that could be gained both from the pursuit of the depigmentation process, and from any understanding that comes out of studying the medical implications of the possible autoimmune process.
Bill
