Colouring confusion - how do the genetics for these work?

[jovamabob]

So im soon to pick up 8 baby corn's for a behavioural research project (im researching spatial learning for my dissertation so no one is gonna be harmed at all!) The parents are an anerythristic female and a hypomelanistic motley male (i don't know their backgrounds yet).
Im a little confused as to how these specific colourings work, and im thinking of planning on using one of these guys as a private breeding project in the very distant future. From the adverts i know their clutches produced these types in late June/early july:

• Normal
• Hypo
• Anery
• Anery motley
• Ghost
• Ghost Motley

They also have another normal female that produce a clutch with the male, but the normals and hypo im getting came from the anery. Im unsure about the ghost's mother yet - i was told it had to be an anery by a friend to create the colouring though. I have an understanding of genetics to a basic degree level but im confused as to how the colours work for these particular types. How are the colourings in the babies produced and will they carry other colourings or do they have to only have those colours genetics wise? I can link a photo of the parents, the hypo baby and the ghost baby if they're needed

 

[Buzzard]

Anery ("black albino") = no red/orange coloration
Hypo = reduced melanin, oranges & reds are washed out, no typical black borders or belly checkers, instead they tend to be "bronze" in coloration
Ghost = hypo & anery
Motley = pattern

The anery parent was obviously het hypo and motley in order to produce hypos and ghosts along with motleys. If you dont already have it here is a link to Ians Vivarium which describes the basic colorations of the various morphs: http://iansvivarium.com/morphs/species/elaphe_guttata/?sid=

The corn snake morph guide is also a good resource for descriptions on colorations and genetics (describes various levels of melanin) and is available online:
http://cornguide.com/?ref=KathyLove

 

[jovamabob]

Ah excellent. The thing that tripped me up was i had been told that both hypo and anery are recessive, so the snake had to have two copies of the gene to be that colouring, but i assume now that the recessives can co-exist in the case of the ghost and can be carried in the case of the others.

 

[Buzzard]

From your post above, the anery female would then be het hypo and motley and the hypo motley male would be het anery in order to get the combinations in the hatchlings that you described.

 

[pheonix]

Yes they are reccessive. But the hets matched up right. That's why there were some anerys, some hypos, and some ghosts.

 

[Pugsley]

Yes, they are called hidden hets. Until you match them up in the right breeding and Murphy doesn't jinks you, you won't know about them unless the breeder told you they were there.

 

[Susan]

Ah excellent. The thing that tripped me up was i had been told that both hypo and anery are recessive, so the snake had to have two copies of the gene to be that colouring, but i assume now that the recessives can co-exist in the case of the ghost and can be carried in the case of the others.

Most corn snake genes are recessive, but also, most act independently from each other. As a result, a corn snake can look like a normal and be het for many genes as well as be homozygous for many genes resulting in the wide variety of morphs we have today.