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Could Tesseras Be Hybrids?

Oren, probably a very close second to boids where exact locality of a specimen counts very much that I have seen in the colubrid world concerns gray-banded kingsnakes. They have localities narrowed down to highways! Just listed on kingsnake.com this morning are the following localities:

Highway 277
Loma Alta
West Langtry
River Road
Black Gap
Davis Mt. (Highway 118)
 
If the tessera was the result of a crossing of a leopard ratsnake and a corn snake it would not be a hybrid. Because technically your breeding 2 rat snakes anyway.
 
wormy cheeks said:
If the tessera was the result of a crossing of a leopard ratsnake and a corn snake it would not be a hybrid. Because technically your breeding 2 rat snakes anyway.
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umm, wrong you are!.......if this was the case(which it isn't), they would be a DEFINITE hybrid in every single sense of the word. Leopard Rats are a completely different genus, species, and subspecies.


~Doug
 
Ooops!, just to clarify,.....In my haste, I only meant to type "genus and species" since "Elaphe situla" have no subspecies.


~Doug
 
Kokopelli said:
Having been a member of several forums and species related communities, I have to say that the Cornsnake community, by far, seems to be the most eager to shout "hybrid".

I guess there are reasons for that... with Colubrids being so prolific and many looking similar'ish… it’s more of a common practice.
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And....I think it is the fact that cornsnakes HAVE been bred to many other colubrids. There are crosses with bullsnakes, ratsnakes, kingsnakes, milksnakes and gartersnakes (joking) to name a few. Combine those hybrids with other hybrids and the mix is impressive. In the cornsnake world hybridization HAS happened with many other species so it is probably somewhat natural for people to jump to the conclusion that new and improved snakes which look similar to other species and have slightly murky backgrounds may have hybrid bloodlines.

And...for the record, I am not saying tesseras are hybrids just that I can certainly see why people may question whether they are.
 
El Jefe said:
And....I think it is the fact that cornsnakes HAVE been bred to many other colubrids. There are crosses with bullsnakes, ratsnakes, kingsnakes, milksnakes and gartersnakes (joking) to name a few. Combine those hybrids with other hybrids and the mix is impressive. In the cornsnake world hybridization HAS happened with many other species so it is probably somewhat natural for people to jump to the conclusion that new and improved snakes which look similar to other species and have slightly murky backgrounds may have hybrid bloodlines.

And...for the record, I am not saying tesseras are hybrids just that I can certainly see why people may question whether they are.
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Sure, I can understand how some might think it could be without being able to deduct it for themselves by keying it out meristically. The Tessera only has the characteristics of a genuine cornsnake aside from the main aberrant pattern itself, that's it. All the rest of the typical patterning and colors and every feature about them that is still very normal and typical such as their post-ocular stripe behind the eye, black supralabial and infralabial striations, head chevroning, what belly checkering there is, black red and orange coloration, etc.. ALL says 100% Pantherophis guttatus without question to me. But just knowing what the normal non-Tessera phenotypes from a Tessera clutch look like is all I have to see anyway. It just isn't possible that they are anything other than a genuinely authentic cornsnake.

Anyway, whoever thinks the Tessera is actually a hybrid of somekind, do yourself a favor and don't get into different milksnake subspecies if your ID skills are that poor..LOL! :duck:




~Doug
 
Susan said:
Oren, probably a very close second to boids where exact locality of a specimen counts very much that I have seen in the colubrid world concerns gray-banded kingsnakes. They have localities narrowed down to highways! Just listed on kingsnake.com this morning are the following localities:

Highway 277
Loma Alta
West Langtry
River Road
Black Gap
Davis Mt. (Highway 118)
Click to expand...

You know, that really cracks me up. In a gallows humor sort of way.

A long while back, I used to breed gray banded kings, and I got some locality types and some that just looked like NICE blair's phase graybands. All were a pain in the butt to get feeding, so at one of the Tampa shows we were doing at the time, another vendor came by my table before the show opened and offered to buy ALL of the graybands if I would give him a deal. No way I wanted to take them back home with me, so yeah, I gave him a GOOD deal.

Anyway, the show was pretty gruesome, and sales were apparently slow for everyone. I walked by that guy's table and he still had ALL of those graybands sitting there. Didn't sell one of them. I lamented that fact to him, and said I was sorry sales weren't better for him (thanking my lucky STARS I had sold them all to him!). He said something to me that took my breath away and I never have forgotten it. He said something in the order of "Heck, no problem. I've had this happen before, but I'll just take them all with me the next time I go out to Texas and sell the stew out of them out of the motel as locality freshly caught babies."

So yeah, now every time I hear people talking about "locality" gray bands, it does bring a chuckle to me, wondering how many of those original "locality" animals came from this guy, or perhaps someone else doing the same darn thing.

And DON'T EVEN get me started on "locality Okeetees"... :laugh:
 
Susan said:
If you bred a Hwy 277 locality with a Hwy 118 locality, do you get an intersection?
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I love you for this.

Rich that's a pretty scary story about locality animals. Yikes.

If I was a betting person, my money would go on king snake being mixed in with the Tessera. Purely speculation on my part. Specifically this type: Delta Phase Cal King.

Am I right? Maybe, maybe not, who knows. Do I still think Tesseras are neat and worth owning? YES. I'm glad the morph is being mixed into other gene, the results are outstanding.

When you produce something so vastly different from any other morph out there (dominant, also kinda the patterning) it's bound to get naysayers and detractors. People love a good conspiracy.
 
Just to add to the mess a bit...

I personally am not of the view that Tesseras are a hybrid morph. I was excited when I found out that some kind of dominant trait had been discovered - finally! It's not all that shocking that new morphs are popping up relatively frequently. Corn snakes are so easily bred that almost anyone with a male and a female can (and often do) produce lots of hatchlings. They're cute! Why not? Combine their ability to proliferate with how long they've been bred in captivity, and suddenly it becomes obvious why there are currently 231 morphs listed on Ian's Vivarium. Random alleles can show up in homozygous form in the wild from genetically limited populations in almost any species (for example, I saw a melanistic groundhog this summer). It's even more likely that they'll show up in controlled circumstances where the genetics are purposely being manipulated.

And I agree with Kokopelli - there are species that are similar enough to produce nearly identical patterns. Several look like corn snakes, it's not so strange that a corn might look like something else. There's a somewhat limited number of patterns that snakes can produce. To generalize, there are stripes, and there are blotches. Most patterns are some variation of either one. The Tessera morph is just a really cool stripe!

I think most, if not all, reputable breeders try not to work with known or suspected hybrid morphs only to pass them off as pure. So until proven otherwise, I'll continue to think that Tesseras aren't hybrids.
 
Who knows what may be knocking about in corn genes. Look at the Ultramels, many people assumed they were pure, but they are hybrids. That horse is miles out of the barn now that they have been breed into all kinds of stuff.

I know Don lists them as a Inter-species Hybrid, but most people don't. Ultra/Ultramel via South Mountain Reptiles.
 
DMong said:
...All the rest of the typical patterning and colors and every feature about them that is still very normal and typical such as their post-ocular stripe behind the eye, black supralabial and infralabial striations, head chevroning, what belly checkering there is, black red and orange coloration, etc.. ALL says 100% Pantherophis guttatus without question to me.
~Doug
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Nanci said:
But as Doug says, if you key it out- no way. Morphology doesn't lie.
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Keying it out based on color and pattern is not quite the same as keying it out based on scales and scale count. In normal wild populations color can vary and look one way or another but scale count and placement is usually pretty consistent.

Whether there is a difference in scale count, I have no idea. Heck, I've never even scale counted other suspected hybrids (i.e ultra) to see how they match so who knows whether there really is a difference. Does anyone know if it has been done? Has Chuck looked at them in that way?
 
I assumed Doug meant scales. The color/patterns were basic, unmistakeable clues to him, and scales backed that up.
 
Nanci said:
I assumed Doug meant scales. The color/patterns were basic, unmistakeable clues to him, and scales backed that up.
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Yeah, he talked scales but then discussed color and pattern similarities.

Doug, do you own one and have you done a scale to scale comparison with a wild-type corn or those found in dichotomous keys?
 
BloodyBaroness said:
If I was a betting person, my money would go on king snake being mixed in with the Tessera. Purely speculation on my part. Specifically this type: Delta Phase Cal King.
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HAHAHAA!!!!,..........no offense, but I hope you are better at gambling than you are with snake identification. :)

Are you sure it wasn't a "Newport-Long Beach" morph such as this specimen my good friend Ross Padilla captured and works with?, or San Diego striper morph? (major sarcasm). Several other Cal. king morphs look very similar too, but are just as impossible to be involved with the Tessera corn. It just ain't happenin'............it's a straight-up cornsnake!!

http://southerncaliforniakingsnakes.weebly.com/uploads/7/8/8/1/7881947/6672543.jpg?1318208950

WAIT!!!....I KNOW!!,..this wild-caught specimen found in Riverside County has cornsnake in influence in it!..LOL! :shrugs:

http://i385.photobucket.com/albums/oo298/RossCA_2008/Kingsnakes/Dotted01.jpg
 
El Jefe said:
Yeah, he talked scales but then discussed color and pattern similarities.

Doug, do you own one and have you done a scale to scale comparison with a wild-type corn or those found in dichotomous keys?
Click to expand...


Jeff,.......I personally do not own a Tessera here at my place at the present moment, but I have looked at MANY detailed close up shots of lots of Tesseras and the scalation keys-out 100% true cornsnake, not Cal. king or even Garter Snake..LOL! (sarcasm).

The cornsnake has 27 or 29 scale rows at mid-body, while the Cal. king has 23 or 25 at mid-body. Also, I would challenge anyone to see if the anal plate is anything other than divided on their Tessera corns as well on top of everything else mentioned.

Anyone can speculate anything really, but to think a Tessera is anything other than a genuinely authentic cornsnake is ridiculous in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong though, I am the FIRST to agree that there are hybrids and countless types of weird man-made crosses in this hobby than ever before, but the Tessera corn isn't one of them.............period!



cheers, ~Doug
 
oh! one other thing!

It is also extremely important to understand that IF the Tessera was any sort of hybrid composite, some specimens that represented the other species phenotype involved would most DEFINITELY be popping up in these Tessera clutches from time to time, and it doesn't happen. In other words, they "breed true" consistently because they are "true corns",....simple as that. :spinner:



~Doug
 
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