Hybrids and new morphs?

[carl3]

As people look to produce for new morphs (and as some think... a winning lottery ticket)... How can you tell if people are simply creating new morphs through hybridization of existing corn morphs to make them look different and exciting and new?

I know some hybrids have unmistakable characteristics, but how can anyone really tell, especially if the origin of the corn snakes are questionable? Plus, have all the possible hybrids been experimented with, genetically speaking? AND, whats to say that hybrid-looking corns will always be distinguishable?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of hybrids or anything, but I just wonder how anyone would really know...OR if there was ever any past stories or history of someone trying to pull off a hybrid as a new morph and how they were 'found out'....(note: no need to mention names)

I guess I'm just questioning the future of snakes, as some (and I realize its not everyone) search for their new morph to bring in cash for them. It has definately taken a crazed effect on the ball python market. I swear I see people posting classifieds all over the net for 'unusual' looking BP, 'could be genetc' and its really just a normal looking BP to me...LOL...... and I swear some BP morphs have resemblences to other pythons....maybe hybrids? who knows? and some have been hybridized...with honesty (the angolan ball python).

Thankfully the beauty and appearance of wild type corns is unmistakable... but when hypo version # 7 or anery # 5 (I'm joking) pop up...how can anyone tell if its someone hybridizing? (sp?) Any thoughts or answers???

 

[Rich Z]

Man, I wish I knew the answer to that one!

My colony is pretty much a closed population now because of this problem. Of course, there is a real good chance that I could miss out on a new *true* genetic trait that would pop up in the corn snakes, but after seeing some of the hybrids that I knew were hybrids, it's going to be pretty darn tough to tell if someone truly wants to cover the actual ancestry of an animal they are selling.

 

[Darin Chappell]

It's going to boil down to one issue: Do you, or do you not, trust the individual from whom you are buying an animal? Granted, even a trustworthy person could unknowingly have some non-corn blood flowing around in his racks, but if he is an honest producer of corns, he will be a far better outlet for a buyer than someone who has not developed that level of trust.

JMHO, of course!

 

[Serpwidgets]

The other thing to keep in mind is that it would take considerable effort to bring in a new gene through hybridizing, and then get them to look like corns.

I've wanted to cross Leucistic Tx Rat to corn, to work toward making a leucistic snake with all the good personality of corns. The first thing is getting them to cross breed. Then, you have to spend a few years raising up the F1s. In order to recapture the Leucy trait, you have to cross them to each other. Assuming those leucy F2s will not look totally like corns, you have to raise them up for another few years, and breed them back to corns. Since there's no corn with that gene, you have to take those (F3s) raise them up for a few years, and breed them together again to create F4 leucies...

Will those pass for corns? I dunno. But if they don't, you'd have to go through another two generations of raising/breeding to get more corn blood into them. We're talking 6 generations at that point.

I get the feeling that by the time I've gotten to the point where I've got the leucies I want, a leucy trait will have popped up in the cornsnake population and I will have pretty much wasted all that time and effort.

I think the people who are out for a quick buck, or a quick anything, are not going to put any large amount of effort into a project of that scale. So I don't find myself worried about whether any traits came from someone who's trying to scam us out of our money by hybridizing.

What I do see as possible (and IMO a more likely scenario) is that some traits could have entered the cornsnake population through natural hybrid/intergrade specimens. If you go 3 years per generation, by my rough estimates it could take nature as few as 60 years to go from a 50/50 intergrade, to a snake of either species that is every bit as pure as any other member of the species. If one of those genes from the other species were a survival advantage, then it could have stayed in those bloodlines.

The thing is, there's no way to tell if a new gene came from a spontaneous mutation, or if they actually crossed over from a different species. Say you suspect it came from species X, and you breed a corn of that morph to species X. Even if you get F1 mutants, it still proves nothing about where the trait originated in corns...