Some "Anery C" comparisons...

abell82 said:

:bowdown: I am just saying that it looks an awful lot like an Emory rat.

Click to expand...

Not from my end. Emory rats are not silver and black, they're brown and tan and I've yet to see a red emory rat.

abell82 said:

What I am not saying it has been purposely bred to deceive anyone. And as for the ancestor being wild caught, that would have been all I needed to hear 20 years ago, but this is Florida we are talking about here, land of huricanes, and people that cast off unwanted animals. A place that now has Oscars and Paranha were there used to be none.(This is not intended as a slam on Florida..., people... maybe , but not Florida).

Click to expand...

Okay, let's review the facts. Rich stated that he got this individual from a man who lived in the keys in a trade for a leopard gecko. Rich has stated in other threads that he has adult anery C, as does Carol. This essentially means for Rich a minimum of 3 years to raise said snake up to be of breeding age, and I believe the original anery C was a product of het anery C x offspring of main het adult. Add another 3 years onto that time frame. So I believe you're looking at a minimum of 6 years there, but I'm sure Rich can tell us when he traded for that cornsnake. I believe the other main breeder that Carol has used came from Don S. However, this new line of anery has been traced back to that original snake from Rich.

What are the chances that someone around this guy in the Keys had an emory rat snake that escaped, survived in the wild and was carrying this bizarre gene that only sometimes popped up and created this funky high number of saddles. What are the chances that this funky snake mated with a cornsnake and then one of those hatchlings was subsequently caught by this guy and then traded to Rich. I'd say about 1,000,000 to one.

Could it be a hybrid? I suppose so, but I think emory rat is the wrong way to guess if you want to go there. Is there a better guess as to what's going on? I think there is.

I think for one you're talking about upper keys, which are WEIRD to begin with. For the most part they have plain bellys, tend to appear hypomelanistic and when combined with bloodred they produce a snake that looks bizarre. Hit up Don's website (www.cornsnake.net) and look at this 'rosy bloods'. Those are upper keys corns x bloodred. Tell me that that looks like any normal corn (bloodred or otherwise) that you've seen before.

The first anery was discovered in southwestern florida, so why couldn't there be a seperate line of 'anery' in the Florida keys? Anerythristic corns in southwest florida are not all that uncommon, so clearly it has not been selected against. This just further supports an idea that a similar form of anery could have popped up in the keys.

However, if you want to toss the idea of a hybrid around, I think you're looking at the wrong species. The more logical idea if the snake is a hybrid would come from the obsoletas, not an emory, and specifically from the rossalleni or quadrivittati variety. {Note: I am NOT saying that this is a hybrid nor am I suggesting that any of the upper keys cornsnakes have rossalleni blood in them.} Yellow rats and Everglades rats are found in the upper portions of the florida keys and do intergrade with corns.

Anywho, I think that it's simply a new gene, and perhaps something is tied to it that increases saddle numbers. Anything is possible, however the clutch results just don't make a lot of sense if it were to be something hybrid related. There's simply not enough variety.

abell82 said:

http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1427&stc=1
A pic of one of Carol's Upper Keys Corns.
For reference. :shrugs:

Click to expand...

Which looks nothing like this, if that was your point.

abell82 said:

:bowdown: I am just saying that it looks an awful lot like an Emory rat.

What I am not saying it has been purposely bred to deceive anyone.
And as for the ancestor being wild caught, that would have been all I needed to hear 20 years ago, but this is Florida we are talking about here, land of huricanes, and people that cast off unwanted animals. A place that now has Oscars and Paranha were there used to be none.(This is not intended as a slam on Florida..., people... maybe , but not Florida).

Click to expand...

The Florida Keys is substantially different from mainland Florida. I think the chances of escapes or releases on the mainland being able to migrate in any appreciable numbers to the keys is rather remote. The tides and currents between the keys would be tough going for anything trying to make the way via water. Anything trying to make the trip via the bridge system would probably find that as tough, if not tougher, going.

abell82 said:

: How many clutches of rootbeers and creamsicles have you ever seen that also had Upper keys blood in them? :cheers:
No, but seriously, isn't the Emory just a subspecies of Corn anyway? So would it not be possible to selectivly breed an Emory (look-alike) from a corn? :shrugs:

And yes I admitt it. I am a Conspiricy Theorist. "Just because I'm paranoid don't mean your not after me." :sidestep:

Click to expand...

How many new anerythristic looking genes have you seen in ANY emoryi stock anywhere? Not just 'A' Anerythristic emoryi, but a truly NEW anerythristic looking gene?

Which do you think has the greatest probability of being a plausible theory? (1) The crossing of emoryi into corn snakes just happened to create a new gene in an animal from someone claiming it was a pure Upper Keys corn and this person wanted to pass this new gene on to me secretly, or (2) It truly is an Upper Keys corn that happened to be carrying a new gene which originated in an isolated island population on the Florida keys. An isolated population where a highly restricted land mass would greatly intensify the amount of local inbreeding taking place within the population of corn snakes living there.

Personally I would like to know EXACTLY where that original animal came from and then do some traipsing around on that key to see if I could find any more specimens. Particularly looking for a homozygous example of this anerythristic-like gene. Personally, I believe this trait will be a positive survival trait for the corns exhibiting it, and I imagine that over time the local population will begin to favor this look over the normal coloration. Sure wish I knew how to get ahold of the guy I got that animal from. But heck, that was a while back, and he was getting up there in age as well, so he may not even be around any longer. And of course, ALL corns that come out of the Florida keys are called "Upper Keys", no matter where they really came from.


And take a look at this photo of that original female that this line came out of:



Does that look like an emoryi cross to you? Offspring coming from her have always been lean and lanky looking.

Oh, btw, my clutches have been hatching where I bred the 'C' Anerythristic to both Silver Queen Ghosts (based on 'A' Anerythrism) and Charcoal Ghosts. As of today, ALL of the babies are either normals or hypos. Since my original breeding to that Upper Keys corn was with a Hypo male as I wanted to produce Hypo Upper Keys, it is not at all surprising that the 'C' Anerythristics I have are carrying Hypo.

So yeah, I'm pretty darn sure this is a new gene.

While I am at it, I don't think it is unreasonable at all to think that there could be a pattern tied to this gene. I'm beginning to become more and more convinced that the odd looking pattern of the Sunkisseds may very well be tied with that hypomelanistic producing gene as well. Has anyone seen a non-hypo animal from Sunkissed breedings that had the pattern (particularly the head pattern) without the lighter color?

Rich Z said:

Which do you think has the greatest probability of being a plausible theory? (1) The crossing of emoryi into corn snakes just happened to create a new gene in an animal from someone claiming it was a pure Upper Keys corn and this person wanted to pass this new gene on to me secretly, or (2) It truly is an Upper Keys corn that happened to be carrying a new gene which originated in an isolated island population on the Florida keys. An isolated population where a highly restricted land mass would greatly intensify the amount of local inbreeding taking place within the population of corn snakes living there.

Click to expand...

Ding Ding Ding. I believe we have a winner. Say a population of anery corns got trapped on a key and there was simply no way for new corns to get on or off that particular key. Over many many generations of essentially inbreeding with that same population, something new is eventually bound to pop up. We also know that nature does not select against anerythristic snakes. How long do you think an amelanisitc corn would last out in the wild?

Or hey, say a random mutation popped up and created a different type of anery. Since the keys are isolated (unless a corn travels over the bridge back to mainland florida) that gene is just going to bounce around that particular key until it is reproduced in homozygous form.

Rich Z said:

Personally I would like to know EXACTLY where that original animal came from and then do some traipsing around on that key to see if I could find any more specimens. Particularly looking for a homozygous example of this anerythristic-like gene. Personally, I believe this trait will be a positive survival trait for the corns exhibiting it, and I imagine that over time the local population will begin to favor this look over the normal coloration. Sure wish I knew how to get ahold of the guy I got that animal from. But heck, that was a while back, and he was getting up there in age as well, so he may not even be around any longer. And of course, ALL corns that come out of the Florida keys are called "Upper Keys", no matter where they really came from.

Click to expand...

I'm sure you would. Does anyone else sense Zuchowski family vacation to the keys this winter?

I'd be surprised if there wasn't some anery C cornsnake cruising around the keys right now.

How long have you had that female upper keys het anery c?

While I am at it, I don't think it is unreasonable at all to think that there could be a pattern tied to this gene. I'm beginning to become more and more convinced that the odd looking pattern of the Sunkisseds may very well be tied with that hypomelanistic producing gene as well. Has anyone seen a non-hypo animal from Sunkissed breedings that had the pattern (particularly the head pattern) without the lighter color?

Click to expand...

This is a question we've been pondering for a while. The hets I've produced sure seem to be quasi-sunkissed looking. They have shorter heads, thicker necks, and more of a tendency to having that bold ringneck pattern and sunkissed-like head patterns...kind of like the hets for diffusion. I noticed some of the heads in your hypo/sunkissed photos are very sunkissed-looking as well. Sunkissed seems to be a pattern trait. Granted I've worked with much smaller numbers than you, Kathy, and others, but Sunkissed sure doesn't seem to be a pure color trait to me. Perhaps the lightening is secondary to changes in pattern development.

On thing I've wanted to do, and if you've done this I'd love to see the results, is breed my Okeetee het sunkissed (thick-necked, thin bordered, ravenous like a sunkissed) female to a nice thick-bordered Okeetee. I'm just curious if the clutch would come out with two distinct phenotypes...one thin saddle bordered variety (which in theory could designate the hets for sunkissed) and the others of the typical thick-bordered Okeetee variety (presumed non-hets). If the clutch did hatch with two very recognizable subgroups, it would be fun to test the theory and test them to sunkisseds. Just curious if Sunkissed predictably strikes through in the hets and if you could pick them out.



Rich, have you seen the weird anery color split from the bizarre pattern in any of them?

Let's all keep in mind that the normals in this line look nothing like Emoryi ratsnakes, or rootbeers. It's only when this gene expresses itself creating obviously drastic differences in the color and pattern, that all the "it's a hybrid" comments come out.

When's the last time someone crossed "emoryi X corn" hybrids to anything and got a clutch consisting of only two clearly different "one looks like a corn and the other looks like an emoryi" phenotypes?

I'm still trying to figure out how it could be that, with all the creamsicles and rootbeers out there, nobody has ever run into a simple-recessive gene that instantly turns what looks like a typical corn into what has colors and pattern reminiscent of an emoryi. Even if these were "hybrids" it would still require such a thing to exist in Emoryi's ratsnakes, so why has this "emoryi gene" not been observed in any of the thousands upon thousands of creamsicles/rootbeers/cinnamons/anything-crossed-with-emoryi specimens?

If there were a single-gene trait that gave corns a banded black and white pattern that looked like desert phase cal kings, would we all be assuming that the whole line is originated from cal kings? :shrugs: Apparently so.

abell82 said:

How many clutches of rootbeers and creamsicles have you ever seen that also had Upper keys blood in them? :cheers:

Click to expand...

I've never seen any. :shrugs: And just for Clarification. The female you posted a pic of is only half keys. She is the original female I got from Rich that all of my Anery C's originated from.

Rich Z said:

How many new anerythristic looking genes have you seen in ANY emoryi stock anywhere? Not just 'A' Anerythristic emoryi, but a truly NEW anerythristic looking gene?

Click to expand...

I have not, but that does not mean there is not one there. How long did it take for Anery B to show up in corns? Why, should it NOT be possible to have an anery b Emoryi? :shrugs:
:-offtopic I have to say that the Emory Rat's Natural coloration APPPEARS somewhat anerythristic to me to begin with.

carol said:

I've never seen any. :shrugs: And just for Clarification. The female you posted a pic of is only half keys. She is the original female I got from Rich that all of my Anery C's originated from.

Click to expand...

Understood. So what your saying is they are intergrades :eek1: (JUST KIDDING) But that snake also displays somewhat jagged borders, atleast it seems to from that pic. And that is why I posted that link.

I've read the hole discussion and I don't believe that it are hybrids

a little bit off topic: I think that the high saddle-count gene (if it exists) combined with the motley gene would look really great

MaeglinCalaelen said:

a little bit off topic: I think that the high saddle-count gene (if it exists) combined with the motley gene would look really great

Click to expand...

Ya, oddly enough, IIRC the original male is het Motley. It is interesting it hasn't popped up yet, or maybe it has... :shrugs: :grin01:

Integrates or let'S say Hybrids don't show a "on and off" of a look. They all look somewhere like a mixture and you'll find characteristic details in every animal, more or less strong.
Having an "on and off" button for e.g. that high saddle count excludes Emoryi blood as the source for that. Also does the AneryC color with it's "on and off" mode.

That facts don't exclude that the whole line could be out of hybrids, but seing the normal animals out of that clutches, I personally don't think so.