"With thanks to Don Soderberg at South Mountain Reptiles for allowing us to use this information from his website.
The founder (discoverer) of the Ultra mutation states that he
originally paired a grey rat snake with a corn snake, in the discovery of this mutation. By the time most of us were made aware of the HYBRID origins of Ultra types (originally named Ultra Hypos), we had already bred it into many other corn snake mutations. It was therefore collectively decided that in so much as it would be virtually impossible to track down (and eliminate) each and every snake containing the Ultra gene (surely thousands of individuals in the collections of hundreds of breeders and keepers), the mutation would be treated like other pure corns. In so much as it generally did not alter the corn snake pattern, some breeders could be unaware they had it, while some could
avoid mentioning it, if they did know. Those of you out there who are boycotting HYBRID corns are advised to avoid acquisition of suspicious-looking corns with the word ULTRA in the morph description. Likewise, purists who admirably endeavour to promote only the genetically purest of corns, are urged to question corns that have suspiciously abnormal features that are historically regarded as hybrid markers. Not that all such markers are proof of alien origins. Especially because of the difficulty and expense of formulating a DNA base line for all North American colubrid snake species, and in the absence of expensive DNA testing to identify authenticity of pure corns, without obvious visual and/or genetic distinctions, identification of legitimately pure (or impure) corns is difficult at this time, if not completely impossible."
http://iansvivarium.com/morphs/ultra.php
So, were looking at a lot of collections being affected... and as there is a lot of controversy concerning hybrids.... this would indeed turn into $$$ figures if purists or those wanting pure corn snakes were not able to sell their corn snakes.... so it was agreed that it was okay to ignore and treat them like other corn snakes. See above paragraph and below. So, not an assumption concerning $$$ with the known controversy surrounding hybrids.
"History: There is alot of contraversity surrounding the Ultra hypo on whether it is a pure cornsnake or a hybrid Cornsnake crossed with a Grey Ratsnake, Pantherophis obsoletus spiloides. The original snake that started this line was wild caught in Hillsborough County, Tampa, Florida;
by whom no one is sure but this animal came into the possesion of Mike Falcon in the early 90's. He described the snake as having unusual colouration, with very little black and was very yellow.
Mike Falcon has said that he bred the original 'Ultra' Corn to both Normal Corns and to a Snow x Grey/Corn cross. It would then appear that there are Ultra's out there that are of hybrid origin and those that are pure. A long debate on this, and one that tries to unravel both the history and inheritance of this cultivar can be found on Cornsnakes.com. The Ultra history is very patchy and probably will never be known for sure. ''
http://www.ratsnakefoundation.org/i...des/cornsnake-morph-guide/333-ultra-cornsnake
My intent is not to rehash this ultra debate, but rather to look at the potential reasons why we might wish to turn a blind cheek towards some questionably pure corns/hybrids and to thus consider them pure as this is the true nature of this thread. What do we consider pure? I contend that purity is a subjective standard in at least some cases of questionable corn snakes depending of course on many factors to include how might that snakes questionable genetics influence other collections, breeders, $$$, etc. Just my thoughts on the matter, but its one reason why I do like the biblical kinds versus the more scientific species although both are admittedly not objectively pure in their definitions as both are subjective creations of man cataloging specimens based on many similarities. With the kind definition, hybrids are actually a work towards the original purity or kind of that animal. So, perhaps one can look at fertile hybrids as being more pure in kind than a species would be that is so far removed evolutionarily speaking from its original kind?