Creamsicle genetics

[xAkmx]

I have read that creamsicles are hybrids between amel corn and normal emoryi, but a friend said the emoryi has to be amel (albino).
So wich way is correct ?

 

[daddio207]

Your friend.

 

[xAkmx]

''Creamsicle Corns - An amelanistic Cornsnake x Great Plains Ratsnake captive bred intergrade. Generally yellow and orange amelanistics rather than red and orange as in pure cornsnakes.''
That's just one of the many examples i found online...

 

[xAkmx]

''Creamsicle Corns - An amelanistic Cornsnake x Great Plains Ratsnake captive bred intergrade. Generally yellow and orange amelanistics rather than red and orange as in pure cornsnakes.''
That's just one of the many examples i found online...

I haven't found anywhere saying that the emory has to be albino...

 

[daddio207]

The Amel gene must be present in both the corn and the rat snake to produce creamsicles.
Yes, Years ago in researching my creamsicle corns I came across the same confusing wording.
"amelanistic Cornsnake x Great Plains Ratsnake". It took me a minute to realize that the author is applying "amel" to the corn x rat cross (singular) in his wording.

I believe a amel corn with a normal Emoryi would produce "rootbeers" het for amel. No visual creamsicles.

 

[HerpsOfNM]

If i recall correctly, the first creamsicles originated from intergrades (= crossing of subspecies) from the pairing of an albino cornsnake (Elaphe guttata guttata) to a normal great plains ratsnake (Elaphe guttata emoryi). Again, going off of memory i recall the first pure albino great plains rat snake being wild collected in the 90s from Kansas and Don Soderberg bringing the trait to the hobby (I even remember the article in REPTILES magazine). Anyhow, back to my first sentence. So the cross was from albino corn snake to normal pigmented great plains rat snake. Those offspring would be the F1 generation. Those F1 animals would be heterozygous for albino via the cornsnake and were crossed. Such a pairing would result in F2 generation offspring with a 1 in 4 chance of albinism cropping up. That in mind, the original creamsicle could have originated by taking one of the F1 hets and breeding it back to an albino corn. Though such breeding probably/assumingly would have produced more reddish creamsicles from the corn influence being around 75%.

Diving into taxonomics, great plains ratsnakes were elevated out of subspecies status years ago to Elaphe emoryi. Then, around 2002 or 2003 mitochondrial DNA analysis was done against New World vs Old World Elaphe. This resulted in a genus change of North American Elaphe over to Pantherophis. Due to this recent taxnomic reworking, a creamsicle is now technically a hybrid (= cross between 2 different species, whether of the same genus or not).

EDIT - The below was added after my initial reply above.

The taxonomy for Great Plains Ratsnake

The taxonomy for Red Ratsnake or Corn Snake (note the map is WAY off for some reason).

The following establishes the albino gene from great plains rat snakes:

Amelanistic - recently, 2 amelanistic animals have been captured in Kansas and are being bred. In addition, a 3rd individual was caught in South Texas, and is also being bred. The Kansas strain is not the same amelanistic gene as is found in the cornsnake - it is unknown if the Texas strain is similar. The Kansas amelanistics are yellow-orange blotched snakes with a white ground color. The Texas amelanistic is a very pale animal with a yellowish-white ground with pale yellow blotches only slightly darker than the ground.

...

Creamsicle Corns - An amelanistic Cornsnake x Great Plains Ratsnake captive bred intergrade. Generally yellow and orange amelanistics rather than red and orange as in pure cornsnakes.

Troy Hibbitts quote is from http://www.kingsnake.com/ratsnake/emoryi.htm.

Interestingly, the goal of the creamiscle project has been realized in a different way - the amelanistic Emory's rat snake - a new strain pioneered by Don Soderberg and only reproduced for the first time in the late 1990s (as discussed earlier in the AMELANISTIC section).

The goal of the creamiscle project has been realized in a different way: the amelanistic Emory's rat snake--a new strain pioneered by Don Soderberg and only reproduced for the first time in the late 1990s. We have dubbed this new gene amel2 to distinguish it from the old established form, which we'll continue to refer to as simply amel.

On establishing the creamsicle mutation background:

AMELANISM section starts on page 13, excerpt from last paragraph on page 14 from AMELANISM section...

When crossed into the E. g. emoryi subspecies, they can be relatively light orange or yellow-orange, a variation that has been coined "Creamsicle" corns.

CREAMSICLE CORN SNAKES
Creamsicle corn snakes, mentioned earlier in the section on amelanism, are corn snakes that are amelanistic and that have a considerable amount of genetic background from E. g. emoryi, the western subspecies of corn snake. The mutation combined with the decreased red-orange from the E. g. emoryi background result in an amelanistic that is lighter orange than other amelanistics.

Creamsicle is the name given the amelanistic intergrade between the corn snake and its western race, the Great Plains rat snake, E. g. emoryi. While the normal intergrade produces a snake that typically is brighter than the Great Plains but duller than the corn snake, when the mutation for amelanism is factored in, the offspring produced have a beautiful yellow-white ground color and peach to pale orange blotches. The color intensity of these magnificent intergrades intensifies with advancing age.

Bill & Kathy Love on the beginnings of the Reverse Okeetee or Albino Okeetee, that segues into creamsicle origin
During the mid-late 1980s, we noticed that a few specimens in our colony possessed unusually large white borders around the blotches and singled them out for a special project.

...

Concurrently, Glen Slemmer of Vancouver, British Columbia, was crossing Great Plains rats (E. G. emoryi) with amelanistic corns to increase the amount of yellow pigment and to decrease the red, hoping to create a golden yellow-orange variation of corn. The resulting subspecific crosses can range from golden yellow to, more often, an orangish butterscotch color. The one constant is that they lack any real red. True to its emoryi roots, clutch sizes tend to be smaller than those found for pure corns, but the babies are often larger and more robust and easy to get started feeding on newborn mice. The name 'Creamsicle' was coined along the way, presumably due to its pastel orange resemblance of a popular frozen dessert on a stick.

 

[daddio207]

If i recall correctly, the first creamsicles originated from intergrade (= crossing of subspecies) from the pairing of an albino cornsnake (Elaphe guttata guttata) to a normal great plains ratsnake (Elaphe guttata emoryi). Again, going off of memory i recall the first pure albino great plains rat snake being wild collected in the 90s from Kansas and Don Soderberg bringing the trait to the hobby (I even remember the article in REPTILES magazine). Anyhow, back to my first sentence. So the cross was from albino corn snake to normal pigmented great plains rat snake. Those offspring would be the F1 generation. Those F1 animals would be heterozygous for albino via the cornsnake and were crossed. Such a pairing would result in F2 generation offspring with a 1 in 4 chance of albinism cropping up. That in mind, the original creamsicle could have originated by taking one of the F1 hets and breeding it back to an albino corn. Though such breeding probably/assumingly would have produced more reddish creamsicles from the corn influence being around 75%.

Diving into taxonomics, great plains ratsnakes were elevated out of subspecies status years ago to Elaphe emoryi. Then, around 2002 or 2003 mitochondrial DNA analysis was done against New World vs Old World Elaphe. This resulted in a genus change of North American Elaphe over to Pantherophis. Due to this recent taxnomic reworking, a creamsicle is now technically a hybrid (= cross between 2 different species, whether of the same genus or not).

***I'm posting on the ipad and will move over to the pc to better verify the above***

Fascinating facts ! Thank you for posting this. Much more going on than it seemed with the Creamsicle. The quick answer provided in description of the Creamsicle is technically correct but leaves out the generation of inbreeding to produce the first Creamsicle. So the first pure albino Emoryi had nothing to do with the production of the Creamsicle ?

 

[HerpsOfNM]

So the first pure albino Emoryi had nothing to do with the production of the Creamsicle ?

Correct, see my edited reply above. The short: the creamsicle was in development within the 80s and its albino (amelanism) gene was derived from the corn snake, which at the time was taxonomically known as Elaphe guttata guttata and the albino gene for corn snakes ties back to Doctor H. Bernard Bechtel of Valdosta, GA when he obtained a wild caught male amelanistic corn snake from North Carolina back in 1953 (Love and Love, The Corn Snake Manual, Page 84). The first albino (amelanistic) Great Plains rat snake of pure emoryi blood didn't surface until the late 1990s. I wish Don Soderberg went into detail on the albino emoryi like he does for many traits on his website. But with he living in Texas now it is paperwork intensive to breed great plains rat snakes and sell the offspring due to Texas Parks & Wildlife regulations. Outside of the creamsicle mutation, Don's (per my last conversation with him on the subject back in February) completely out of his emoryi mutations.

The quick answer provided in description of the Creamsicle is technically correct but leaves out the generation of inbreeding to produce the first Creamsicle.

Again, dating back to the 1980s, an albino corn snake was crossed to a great plains rat snake. The first generation offspring, genetically known as F1 or Filial 1 generation would be 100% heterozygous for corn snake albino gene. These hets are what we now call Rootbeer corns, and can vary in the percentage of emoryi or guttatus blood; for this example, they are 50/50.

Breeding a male and female F1 together would result in the following:
Let A=normal melanin pigment production
Let a=lack of melanin pigment production (=albino, which = amelanism)
Each animal will contribute 1 A and 1 a gene.
The results from a Punnett Square, or Monohybrid Cross (hybrid here refers to gene crossing and NOT the taxonomy of the parents), would be a phenotypic ratio of 3:1 normal:albino and genotypic ratio of 1:2:1 of normal:heterozygote:albino.
The resultant offspring would be called F2, or 2nd generation and would still be of 50% corn snake and 50% great plains rat snake blood.

Theoretically, one could take any resulting albino offspring that pop up in the 2nd generation and cross back to mom or dad of the F1 to assumingly strive towards producing more orange, or essentially more emoryi-influenced albinos. Or one could breed the F2-produce albino (which is 50% corn 50% GP rat) to a corn snake to possibly factor in more red with the orange, which would be counter productive towards a creamsicle-type animal.

 

[daddio207]

HerpsOfNM
Again, THANK YOU such a detailed answer ! Very interesting for sure.
You have definitively answered the OP and my questions.
:cheers: