king snake influence in tessera morph?

[Mitchell Mulks]

Rich, thanks for the info. You've definitely produced more corns than I have come close to, but to date I've never seen the ventral variation in any line even com close to tesseras. Thanks for sharing your insight!

 

[Shiari]

When I bred Vanay (charcoal) to Lacy (pewter) some of the babies can out with full checkers, a few with small splits, a bunch with a large split.... and then one like this.

The checkers are pushed to the outer edges, but are also occupying almost every scale going down *both* sides. If this guy had normal checkers going across his belly would have been almost solid black.

 

[Nanci]

However, with tessera clutches it's common knowledge that they don't have a set ventral pattern, that in fact their ventral pattern can be anything under the sun; and all that variation can be seen in the same clutch. That's not normal, and it's consistent with only tesseras.

These hatchlings are from one clutch of Keys lineage:

 

[airenlow]

This clutch also had a wide range of belly checks...including this girl.

siblings

 

[dave partington]

I agree, as soon as someone breeds one of those KNOWN Cal. king x corn hybrids to a Tessera, and they all come out with identical Tessera phenotypes, then it would prove something other than a snake looking intermediate between the two parent species.

What would someone do with them once they produced them?

Hybrid visual Tess may easily be passed off as regular Tess, leading to lots of "new genes" being discovered in the future. Color alone is not a het marker. Many 3/4 corns have regular corn head markings.

I can see a future where some threads may be titled "Hey, look what I found at the big chain petshop!" & "What morph is this?"

It's moments like this when I am glad I've acquired all our critters directly from the breeders, without them having passed through a lot of different hands to get to the petstore

 

[DMong]

What would someone do with them once they produced them?

Hybrid visual Tess may easily be passed off as regular Tess, leading to lots of "new genes" being discovered in the future. Color alone is not a het marker. Many 3/4 corns have regular corn head markings.

I can see a future where some threads may be titled "Hey, look what I found at the big chain petshop!" & "What morph is this?"

It's moments like this when I am glad I've acquired all our critters directly from the breeders, without them having passed through a lot of different hands to get to the petstore

I totally agree. I don't condone propagating and dispersing hybrids at ALL. I was just discussing that very issue over the phone, and THAT is precisely what would inevitably happen. It would only produce more hybrids and thus even MORE confusion and problems than there already is in the hobby.

"Hey, look what I found at the big chain petshop!" & "What morph is this?" ..... is unfortunately already a very common everyday occurrence. Certainly not from just pet stores, but virtually anywhere else.

In short, the only responsible thing to do if it was done would be to cull the resultant offspring no matter what the outcome is, but I don't believe in producing animals only to kill them off once produced either. No matter how this issue is sliced, I am dead set against man-made hybridization.....period! This is also why I keep saying "if it WASN'T always constantly done in the first place, there would never be an of these hybrid issue or threads.......but since it so ridiculously common-place now, .............there are always these hybrid issues. It's a very sad and undeniable fact, and all the countless and irresponsible hybridizers are the ones to thank for all this. I don't support ANY form of it, and never will.

 

[BloodyBaroness]

In short, the only responsible thing to do if it was done would be to cull the resultant offspring no matter what the outcome is, but I don't believe in producing animals only to kill them off once produced either. No matter how this issue is sliced, I am dead set against man-made hybridization.....period! This is also why I keep saying "if it WASN'T always constantly done in the first place, there would never be an of these hybrid issue or threads.......but since it so ridiculously common-place now, .............there are always these hybrid issues. It's a very sad and undeniable fact, and all the countless and irresponsible hybridizers are the ones to thank for all this. I don't support ANY form of it, and never will.

Amen to that.

I agree, it's the irresponsible, well unscrupulous maybe be the better term, hybridizers that cause all this suspicion.

If people were honest (both regular breeders and hybridizers,) all this suspicion and finger pointing would happen much less. People are always going to question new genes, but in the absence of questionable ethics, they don't have a leg to stand on.

 

[diamondlil]

Remember the microscale corns? Found in a clutch by a regular owner/breeder. Ok, so the odds are against the smalltime breeders but if a completely new mutation cropped up purely by chance for her, why does every other time it happens lead to speculations about hybrids?

 

[Buzzard]

Remember the microscale corns? Found in a clutch by a regular owner/breeder. Ok, so the odds are against the smalltime breeders but if a completely new mutation cropped up purely by chance for her, why does every other time it happens lead to speculations about hybrids?

Because it is human nature to question.

When there is no response or the infamous "it just happened" response, we look for logic. Logic to each person is different, means and so forth of reasoning occur... hence this lovely debate :duck:

It makes me laugh when the "puriest" and the "hybrid" people argue. Both have there own reasoning and neither know more than the other. But it happens....So buckle up and enjoy the ride :blowhead:

I also noticed he removed his "Hybrid theroy"

http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=65&de=972158

 

[ecreipeoj]

Politically Incorrect

Tessera Hybrid Theory:
I have been breeding Tesseras for two years now. Based upon my results, I believe Tesseras are a result of genes from the Striped California King Snake. Striped Super Corns (75%/25% Corn/Striped California King Snake) are similar, with 87% Corn blood, 94%, and 97%, Corn Snake Blood, it is very possibe that we would produce Tesseras, carrying the Dominant Striped Gene of the California King Snake?

We often hear about “markers” that can indicate a Corn Snake has hybrid blood in them, but what are they? They must exist because we use the lack of them to prove new mutant genes in our Corns are from pure Corn Snake lines, and we see them in Corn Snake Hybrid lines. Markers are things we normally see in our Corn Snake offspring, and Markers can be abnormal as well. The following is a list of markers that I have observed with Tesseras.

1) The belly patterns of Tesseras are inconsistent. A combination of belly patterns between Corn Snakes and Striped California King Snakes are produced. Plain bellies, checker bellies and a combination of the two are common. In fact, a mix of just about every belly pattern I have ever seen on a Corn Snake. There is no simple genetic reason for this. If no mutant gene is effecting the belly pattern, is this a case of reverse selective breeding? All of our other pattern genes have consistent belly patterns. With the addition of Banded, Motley belly patterns can have some checkers.

2) The belly patterns of the Non-Tessera siblings are inconsistent. The same belly patterns on Tesseras can be produced. We should get a checkered Corn Snake belly pattern, but the plain belly pattern of the Striped California King Snake is having influence. There is no simple genetic reason for this. We can exclude Het Diffused, Het Masque, Het Border-less which all produce a split belly pattern, and the Non-Tess sibling belly patterns are still inconsistent. Again, is reverse selective breeding is occurring.

3) Tesseras and Non-Tessera offspring are brighter and cleaner than Corns. They are missing an entire layer of dirty wash that most Corns have. It can not be bred away. There is no simple genetic reason for this. Most of the Corn Snake Breeders that have bred Tessera have ask me about this and wanted to know my opinion about it. My initial joking response was “They are hybrids, but I won’t tell”. As far as I know, ALL Breeders who have produced Tessera have seen this in the clutches they produced.. No one has came forward to claim this is not the case as far as I know. If Tesseras are 97% Corn Snake why hasn’t this been bred out of them? What other causes of this dirty wash removal can we describe? Kathy Love Okeetees do not have this dirty wash, but when outcrossed to other Okeetees does it reappear? I believe the answer to that is yes, so it seems as if we have a recessive gene that can remove the dirty wash. The same is true of Pied-Sided. Since it can not be bred out of Tessera lines, there has to be another answer. Have you ever seen a Striped Desert Phase California King Snake? They do not have any dirty wash and their white color is as white as new snow. California King Snakes and Corn Snakes are not a perfect match genetically. There offspring are not genetically the same as Corn Snakes. Perhaps the cause of the dirty wash on Corn Snakes was not recreated when the first hybridization occurred and it can from that time on, never be produced. This seems to be the case with Tesseras. When you breed a Striped Super Corn X Corn Snake, you produced 50% Striped Super Corns and 50% Super Corns. Do the Super Corns have the missing layer of color we see in Non-Tess siblings. I believe the answer to this question is yes. Why are Non-Tessera siblings brighter and cleaner than Normal Corns, I believe it is because they are 97% Super Corns.

4) Color and pattern differences are sometimes observed on the Non-Tessera siblings that is not consistent with Normal Corns or their mutants. Anery Corns especially, can be quite different. There is no simple genetic reason for this. The black and white of the California King Snake is still having some influence. Breeders of Super Corns say that it is difficult to produce color variations because it is difficult to breed away the black color of the California King Snake. This could be debated forever. All I can say is that I have been breeding snakes since 2003 and Corn Snake for 25 years, so I have seen 10,000 of thousands of hatchling Corns. I can take into account just about every variable we see in the variation of our Corn Snake offspring and Non-Tessera offspring are unlike normal Corn hatchlings. I have personally put Non-Tessera siblings in a bucket of a 100 Normals Corns going to the wholesaler, and you can pick out the Non-Tessera siblings as if they were hypos.

Conclusion: Non-Tessera siblings are brighter and cleaner than Normal Corns. This has not been disputed as far as I know. This is a Marker of hybridization. There is no simple genetic reason for this. If you will not accept this Marker as proof of hybridization, then you are not interested in Pure Mutant Corn Snakes, you are only interested in maintaining the illusion, that our Mutant Corns Snake Gene Pool is pure Corn Snake. The same thing happened with Ultramel. They discovered the gene by breeding the Corn Snake carrying the Ultra gene to a Gray/Corn Snow. We all know that Ultramels would be produced. They tried to cover this up, by saying they also bred them to Corns Snakes, but did not say Amel or Snow Corns. They did not know that Ultra and Amel are alleles and needed to be specific to cover their lies.

Where are we today with our Corn Snake Hobby? A State of Our Union so to speak. We have our General Corn Snake Gene Pool that has had hybrid genes introduce to it. This Pool of genes contains ALL of our Mutant Genes and the best breeders in the world and first time breeders have been producing all of the Mutants that we marvel at. Creamcicles have been bred in the pool, Ultramels have been bred into the pool, Hybrids have been bred into the pool and now Tesseras have been bred into the pool. People come and go and just about the only permanent records are contained in the ACR. Where are all of the hybrids that have been produced and all of their offspring right now? Most of them are in the General Corn Snake Gene Pool.

A wild population of Corn Snake exist. We could argue the purity of this Corn Snake Pool of genetics, but isn’t this what we base the existence of Corn Snakes on? If you want to be a purest, isn’t this something you could support? Locality Corns like Hunt Club Okeetees for example are pure Corns aren’t they? Currently we have several mutant genes that are traceable to wild caught Corns. Anery, Lava, Sunkissed, Golden, Palmetto, RedCoat, Border-less, and we will find others. Each a Locality Corn or from wild caught lines so pure as we can get. We can create some very nice Morphs from this gene pool and keep track of them with the ACR.

What am I going to do with Tesseras now? I would be lying big time if I were to tell you that I wasn’t just pissed the @#$% off when I came to the realization that my Tesseras are the Super Corn we have all been dreaming of. I wanted to sell all of them off cheap and preserve my collection of Corn Snakes genes the way they are. My collection is unique. It has been registered with the ACR since it was founded, so I know all of my breeders origins.

Today, I realize that Tesseras are just one more addition to our General Corn Snake Gene Pool that are pretty amazing if you look at them from just about any captive stand point. Tessera lines are as hardy as any line of snake you can breed. They grow faster, breed with very high success and the dominant gene allows us to jump generations right into the most amazing new morphs ever created with Corns. What am I going to do with Tesseras now? The answer is easy, create new Super Corn Snake Mutants faster and better than any other Tessera Breeder in the world, or so I will try. Who can produce the most amazing Tessera combines imaginable? We can’t change what has been done, but we can use it to our benefit.

We all make up whatever our hobby will be. The economy sucks right now and we are not helping our case in anyway shape or form. I think we can make our own economy, but we have to start believing in something again and perhaps not fight so much amongst ourselves. I am going to price Tesseras for the price they will sell at, and offer higher priced Tesseras for the investor. Will Tesseras be produced at a faster rate than recessive Mutants? The answer is super fast, but Tesseras are going to take us to a level of new one of a kind Mutant combines like we have never dreamed about before. This hobby is not dieing, we just need to start believing in what we are doing again.

The ACR is the only way I have kept my sanity with this hobby. I know where my General Corn Snake Genes came from. I know which lines are traceable to wild caught lines, (Landrace Lines) and I know which Corns are from Tessera lines like the ones in the photos attached. (RC Tess het SK Blood, RC Tess het St Lav ph Hypo, YF RA Tess het Carmel ph Lava, RA An Tess het Amel Motley, RZ Tess het Frase Blood Line) I also know which lines are Stargazer free and which is suspect.

My 2013 Breeding Season will start soon, and I have plans like all of the rest of you. I will be testing for Stargazer, testing the Golden Corn Gene to Caramel, producing new Landrace lines, producing Mutant Combines and breeding Tesseras to my Mutant females to produce new one of a kind Tesseras Combines. I spent two years breeding Tesseras and I am not backing out now. I have produced 100’s of Tesseras and have held back 25 with cool hets each year of production. My main interest in this hobby is producing new morphs which Tessera accelerated times four. This year I will produced new morphs that nobody else has in the whole world, and so will many of you. This is pretty cool if you ask me. I have not forgot about my love for pure Corns. I am currently on a task to establish a pool of Landrace Mutant Genes. I am still a purist, but I don’t have to limit myself to that. I can do two things at once and perhaps three, Landrace, Mutants, and Tesseras and keep track of them as I go. It time, there will be no reason to separate Mutants and Tesseras. Tesseras will remove the dirty wash from most of them very soon and it will be the new norm in our Mutant Gene Pool.

My Tesseras are the same as your Tesseras. I was blessed with something that causes Reverse Aztec Tesseras Patterns, at least I like them. It seems to be co-dominant. I produced the perfect Pattern Tesseras from my original Tessera, Reverse Aztecs and Aberants. The most likely cause of this is Border-less. (Tess het Border-less, Aberrant, Tess homo Border-less, Reverse Aztec, Okeetee Tess, perfect stripes). My original Tess seems to be het for Anery, Hypo, Yellow Factor, RedCoat and Border-less. He was tested to just about every Mutant gene I have and the results are pretty amazingly mixed up to say the least. He was a result of a breeding between a Tess x Silverqueen if my guesses are correct. You can blame Rich Z for all of my odd ball Markers due to the Silverqueen if you like, except other breeders of Tess are seeing similar results as mine. The Siverqueen added Anery, Hypo, Yellow Factor and Border-less, and the Tess added RedCoat from Okeetee lines.

The lack of Markers were used to prove Tesseras are pure Corn, but the Markers I see prove just the opposite. We don’t need/use DNA proof to prove new mutant genes are pure Corn and we don’t need it to prove they are hybrids as well. Markers either exist, or the term has been used as propaganda to maintain the illusion that our General Corn Snake Gene Pool is pure Corn. I prefer answers, facts, and the truth, over an illusion. There are answers to all of our genetic questions about our Corns, we just have to discover them.
.

 

[diamondlil]

What am I going to do with Tesseras now? I would be lying big time if I were to tell you that I wasn’t just pissed the @#$% off when I came to the realization that my Tesseras are the Super Corn we have all been dreaming of. I wanted to sell all of them off cheap and preserve my collection of Corn Snakes genes the way they are. My collection is unique. It has been registered with the ACR since it was founded, so I know all of my breeders origins.

By using the term 'Super Corn', are you still implying hybrid origins?

 

[BloodyBaroness]

By using the term 'Super Corn', are you still implying hybrid origins?

Sure sounds like it to me.

 

[airenlow]

I prefer answers, facts, and the truth, over an illusion.

Like the truth about 100% hets! Or the illusion of paying people back! Stuff like that, right?

 

[Tom Tuttle]

Mitch, could you please show me entire clutches of several generations of each of those hybrid examples you posted after being bred to more successive normal cornsnakes?


With all due respect, if that cannot be shown and proven, it doesn't mean much of anything that they look extremely similar in my opinion. Those look similar to what I would expect to see anyway, but the fact that they keep that phenotype when constantly outcrossed to normal corns makes NO sense.


~Doug

I'm pretty sure Mitch would if they were actually his animals. Unfortunately that's not the case.

Tom,

Thank you for posting his quote. This is exactly what I'm talking about; individual opinions. I respect his, but based on the breeding results he shared with us, and my experience as a breeder and a scientist whose dissertation is largely based on heritable character traits, I actually disagree with him and see the cal king as the most probable origin of the trait. His hatchlings are incredible though and I think they reveal a lot to us about how the introgression between two species can play out.

You're welcome. I wished you would have had the courtesy to give Dan his due credit for the photos and data he supplied in the Hypo Super Corn thread, on your post. Maybe I just read the post wrong but it definately sends off the vibe that these findings are based on your experience with breeding these particular animals.

Dan is the only person with first hand knowledge of the breedings and all the data. Imho to discount the one person's opinion with a working knowledge of the breedings is absurd. Sure you may have the education but that doesn't trump hands on experience and his personal observations in my opinion.

Here is one of the things I have a problem with: The theories are based on a select group of photos the breeder has chosen to share. It would be nice to see photo's of the entire clutches. Especially if there are a couple generations involved. We're not talking about a trait, it's about a dominate gene. Wouldn't it be nice to see how many in the clutch are the mutant phenotype and how much they vary? :shrugs:

 

[DMong]

I'm pretty sure Mitch would if they were actually his animals. Unfortunately that's not the case.



You're welcome. I wished you would have had the courtesy to give Dan his due credit for the photos and data he supplied in the Hypo Super Corn thread, on your post. Maybe I just read the post wrong but it definately sends off the vibe that these findings are based on your experience with breeding these particular animals.

Dan is the only person with first hand knowledge of the breedings and all the data. Imho to discount the one person's opinion with a working knowledge of the breedings is absurd. Sure you may have the education but that doesn't trump hands on experience and his personal observations in my opinion.

Here is one of the things I have a problem with: The theories are based on a select group of photos the breeder has chosen to share. It would be nice to see photo's of the entire clutches. Especially if there are a couple generations involved. We're not talking about a trait, it's about a dominate gene. Wouldn't it be nice to see how many in the clutch are the mutant phenotype and how much they vary? :shrugs:

Yes, I realize full good and well that they were not Mitch's hybrids, and that they were hand-selected specifically for illustrating his theory. That, and the rest of what you just stated was my entire point. A few select hybrids that look very similar to Tesseras don't reinforce a thing.

 

[Tom Tuttle]

I am going to price Tesseras for the price they will sell at, and offer higher priced Tesseras for the investor.

I have produced 100’s of Tesseras and have held back 25 with cool hets each year of production.

Why would anyone invest when you've already proven that you will over produce what the market will bear. Then turn around and sell for what ever you can get out of them? Are you going to offer rebates to the people that buy in high on your investor Tesseras once you slash prices a couple months later? :shrugs:

I hope you have alot of hungry kingsnakes.

 

[BloodyBaroness]

I'm pretty sure Mitch would if they were actually his animals. Unfortunately that's not the case.



You're welcome. I wished you would have had the courtesy to give Dan his due credit for the photos and data he supplied in the Hypo Super Corn thread, on your post. Maybe I just read the post wrong but it definately sends off the vibe that these findings are based on your experience with breeding these particular animals.

Dan is the only person with first hand knowledge of the breedings and all the data. Imho to discount the one person's opinion with a working knowledge of the breedings is absurd. Sure you may have the education but that doesn't trump hands on experience and his personal observations in my opinion.

Here is one of the things I have a problem with: The theories are based on a select group of photos the breeder has chosen to share. It would be nice to see photo's of the entire clutches. Especially if there are a couple generations involved. We're not talking about a trait, it's about a dominate gene. Wouldn't it be nice to see how many in the clutch are the mutant phenotype and how much they vary? :shrugs:

Now all of that is very interesting. Hmmm....

So these are just a tiny sample of a clutch? Has anyone seen full clutch photos?

 

[DMong]

Now all of that is very interesting. Hmmm....

So these are just a tiny sample of a clutch? Has anyone seen full clutch photos?

That's exactly what I have been getting at. Only a few select hybrid examples were used that displayed similar Tessera phenotypes. The countless other siblings that don't help illustrate this hybrid theory are conveniently missing. :sidestep: I see countless hybrids that look similar to genuinely authentic types of snakes (again why I am so adamantly against hybridization), but they generally vary drastically and other siblings look nothing the same and are random and inconsistent across the board. This is STILL why I cannot picture 100% cornsnake phenotypes and 50% whacky Tessera phenotypes being consistently produced when ALL these Tesseras around the country are bred to countless other non-related NORMAL cornsnakes. You can hardly get any consistency with pure striped Cal. kings bred to each other for cryin' out loud, let alone have all these alleged "hybrid" Tesseras be that ridiculously consistent when bred to all these other zillions of normal unrelated cornsnakes!! :headbang:

 

[dave partington]

1) The belly patterns of Tesseras are inconsistent. A combination of belly patterns between Corn Snakes and Striped California King Snakes are produced. Plain bellies, checker bellies and a combination of the two are common. In fact, a mix of just about every belly pattern I have ever seen on a Corn Snake. There is no simple genetic reason for this. If no mutant gene is effecting the belly pattern, is this a case of reverse selective breeding? All of our other pattern genes have consistent belly patterns. With the addition of Banded, Motley belly patterns can have some checkers.

2) The belly patterns of the Non-Tessera siblings are inconsistent. The same belly patterns on Tesseras can be produced. We should get a checkered Corn Snake belly pattern, but the plain belly pattern of the Striped California King Snake is having influence. There is no simple genetic reason for this. We can exclude Het Diffused, Het Masque, Het Border-less which all produce a split belly pattern, and the Non-Tess sibling belly patterns are still inconsistent. Again, is reverse selective breeding is occurring.

3) Tesseras and Non-Tessera offspring are brighter and cleaner than Corns. They are missing an entire layer of dirty wash that most Corns have

...............................................

My Tesseras are the same as your Tesseras. I was blessed with something that causes Reverse Aztec Tesseras Patterns, at least I like them. It seems to be co-dominant. I produced the perfect Pattern Tesseras from my original Tessera, Reverse Aztecs and Aberants. The most likely cause of this is Border-less. (Tess het Border-less, Aberrant, Tess homo Border-less, Reverse Aztec, Okeetee Tess, perfect stripes). My original Tess seems to be het for Anery, Hypo, Yellow Factor, RedCoat and Border-less. He was tested to just about every Mutant gene I have and the results are pretty amazingly mixed up to say the least. He was a result of a breeding between a Tess x Silverqueen if my guesses are correct. You can blame Rich Z for all of my odd ball Markers due to the Silverqueen if you like, except other breeders of Tess are seeing similar results as mine. The Siverqueen added Anery, Hypo, Yellow Factor and Border-less, and the Tess added RedCoat from Okeetee lines.

The lack of Markers were used to prove Tesseras are pure Corn, but the Markers I see prove just the opposite. We don’t need/use DNA proof to prove new mutant genes are pure Corn and we don’t need it to prove they are hybrids as well. Markers either exist, or the term has been used as propaganda to maintain the illusion that our General Corn Snake Gene Pool is pure Corn. I prefer answers, facts, and the truth, over an illusion. There are answers to all of our genetic questions about our Corns, we just have to discover them.
.

Joe, always a good read.

In reply to the first section quoted:

1. I noticed the belly checkers of the bloodred redcoat stripes I got from you are inconsistent. They are of uniform color, but the arrangement of pattern varies highly between the two individuals. In fact, the checkers of all the cornsnakes I have seen are fairly inconsistent.
2. The bellies of non-tessera siblings are inconsistent because they did not come from a pairing of the original female Tessera X one of the original 2 male Tesseras.
3. Personally, I tend to associate the dirty wash with motley or lack of a hypo gene. Because Tess came from an Okeetee project, and there seem to be many super bright Okees around, traceable back to w/c ancestry.

A ways back I picked up a Landrace Lava, of the lighter color phase. You mentioned to me at some point it may be 50% het Sunkissed. You mention in the thread that your Lava traces back to the original wild cught lava. I believe the original W/C lava belonged to Jeff Mohr.
Here is the thread:
http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115663

When Don & Graham & KJ did the first breedings of Tess, all the baby Tess were mixed up and distributed. As someone who is somewhat familiar with the nuances of linebred traits, and how over several generations of working with a trait, the trait can begin to behave like a gene. So i understand the reference to " My original Tess seems to be het for Anery, Hypo, Yellow Factor, RedCoat and Border-less. " . I also know how carrying a het gene can influence visual color. I do not know what some of my Tessera I have are het for, I have been using them for other projects. I know the original female from Graham is het for significantly less then the rest, so I am glad she is here, so I do not have to worry about influences from hets. Photos of all sides of her somewhere in the Tessera Club thread, post 186,187.

Having read this thread and the other thread, and because I like to run with scissors but sometimes get off the track everyone else is fixated on run thru the woods into another town I go...

I was looking at the side pattern of Tom T's thread on SK Okees. Looks kind of broken up or shattered or something like that.

I got this stunning lady from PJ a couple years ago. She was produced from the naturally occurring sunkissed gene carried by some of the okeettees. She has a date with Elvis this season.

source:http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1495379

Very cool indeed. Sunkissed traceable to wild caughts is a very worth while project if you ask me.

I like to call Wild Line Sunkissed (Landrace Sunkissed) myself. Landrace comes from the horticultural world which reflects seeds that come from wild plants, or directly linked to wild plants.

source:http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1495379#post1495379

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A 2012 example of this is a breeding I did to produce my first Striped Lavas. The breeding was a Border-less Ice het Striped X Striped het Lava. The clutch produced just about exactly 50% Striped and 50% Cubes and broken Stripes. Why did this happen, you might ask. It is simple. The Border-less Ice is just het Border-less, but it is dominant. The Striped offspring in this clutch had a 50% chance at getting the Border-less gene, so perfect Stripes were produces when the gene didn't get passed on and when Border-less was passed on to the Striped offspring, I got Cubes and partial Stripes. Most perfect Cubes are males, and most partial Stripes are females.

I would call the Border-less gene, the Border-less Disease too, because if you get it in an Okeetee Project like my original Wild Line of Lavas, it is just as difficult to get rid of as the Yellow disease, because they are dominant. I see examples of Border-less all the time, people just accept as Normals, but Border-less is not common in wild type Normals. The cool thing about Border-less is that I also think it is responsible for the crazy patterns we see in Sunkissed from projects.

Sunkissed started out as Okeetees, but when they were crossed into our Mutant Corns where Border-less is so prominent, out popped these AMAZING Sunkissed patterns that we are all so in love with.

source: http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1495125&postcount=24

Question: What is the origin of the stripe gene?

Next question, maybe it's a doozy:
With the cs morph called "Shatter" (Cinder X Sunkissed), where the pattern is messed up, I do not believe they are het Tessera. What are the markers on those anyways?

Oh look, here's SK making a messy pattern on a Tess: http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1348169&postcount=144 (Sorry Drew, couldn't help it)

So, still running with scissors here, is there a remote possibility, that these perceived markers you are seeing which indicate to you: "Hybrid!!!", may be the product of something else, perhaps something as yet undefined?

While I find punnet squares and the corncalc useful for predicting possible outcomes, nature seldom behaves with precise calculable results where multi-celled organisms are concerned.

I know I am way out of my league posting this, please be kind, I read slowly.

Curiously,
& as always, thanks for sharing-
dp

 

[Mitchell Mulks]

First, my apologies to Dan at Mesozoic Reptiles if I offended him in any way. In my first post on the second page I referred to the photos I wanted to post and my wording is pretty darn clear that I'd be sharing photos I'd saved to my desktop that I'd gotten from another site. I've been really sick so the hamsters have been struggling in their wheel during the duration of this thread; so when I was finally able to post the photos I forgot to restate that they were from another person's thread. My bad!

In a really nice post on the other corn snake forum there are some absolutely stunning photos of F1 hybrids between striped Cal kings and corn snakes, and F2 super corns (75% corn/25% striped cal king). The F2 super corns, besides the shape of the head, could easily pass as tesseras. The stripe gene of the cal king is dominant in it's inheritance. Furthermore, the lateral segments of the F2 hybrids mirrors the tesselated pattern of tesseras. I would post the photos I have saved to my desktop, but Photobucket seems to hate me right now and keeps sending me to a Beta site;

The most important thing missing from that was either using Dan's name (didn't know it) or Mesazoic Reptiles (which I did know). So for not doing that I do apologize; however, I did make a point that the photos existed in a really nice thread on another site.

What I've found the most troubling and amusing with regards to this whole thread is how emotionally invested so many people are on this topic. While I have continually stated I think tesseras have a hybrid origin, I've done so without emotion and have simply shared with all of you a lot of evidence I think strongly supports the theory I share with others. On multiple occasions, even within the last five pages, some of the most vocal supporters of tesseras being pure corn have asked for people to explain how some of the patterns we see come about. I fulfilled those requests, took the time to explain things so that any confusion would be ameliorated, but then nothing. Instead of recognizing that all of a sudden it no longer helped with an argument against the hybrid theory there simply was no longer any mention of it.

While I'm not emotionally invested in this, I am fully invested with regards to interest. Believe it or not I am listening to all of you that say these are pure and the evidence you're using to support your side of the discussion. I think both sides of the camp have compelling arguments; enough so that I'm actually going to conduct my own investigation.

I find it amusing that people feel the need to see entire clutches of these hybrids, as the majority of those first few generations simply won't be held back. When you're conducting artificial selection trials you don't care about the appearance of the animals that don't have the traits you want to perpetuate. It's expected that within the first one or two generations you'll see wide-ranging phenotypic variation in the hatchlings. However, and most importantly, in the later generations, the generations I think our tessera corns are in now, there is very little variation in siblings...because we've removed the undesirable genes responsible for the king snake morphology out of the line! Remember, you only perpetuate the individuals that best adhere to the phenotype you're trying to refine; with every generation the range of phenotypic variation is reduced. That's how artificial selection works. Once again, it's all about how artificial selection works, the strength of artificial selection on the directional movement of traits, and how rapid a phenotype can change. There have been hundreds of scientific papers (all heavily scrutinized under peer review) that have shown how rapidly, and in just a few short generations, the average phenotype within a population can change. Genetic change takes much longer, but phenotypic change can occur drastically as a result of very little genetic change.

Seeing as how I plan on breeding herps for the remainder of my life, I have no issue beginning a line of striped cal king x corn hybrids. I already have a striped cal king coming my way. The last thing I need is a wild-caught corn, so, if any of you can help with me obtaining a legally collected corn snake that would be superb. So, I plan on starting my own "tessera" line with hybrid origins. Kevin has already shared with all of you that he personally knows breeders who were producing tessera-like snakes from this particular hybridization of species, all of which were produced before tesseras hit the market. I've shared with all of you that I've done almost a decade-long heritability study with CA mtn kings where I was required to euthanize hundreds of hatchlings. Therefore, euthanizing any hatchlings that won't be used in the next generation won't be an issue for me. Even better, I'll photograph every hatchling for all of you; dorsals, laterals, and ventrals. I'll even count labials for Doug. I'll do all of this not to prove any point, but simply because I find this particular situation really interesting. Also, it's an easily obtainable task. Hopefully, regardless of the outcome after four generations everyone else will find it interesting too. My prediction is that after four generations I'll be able to post one of the hatchlings and no one would be able to differentiate between it and a "pure" tessera. At that point we'd really have to ask ourselves two questions. First, how likely would it be that the exact same phenotype arose from two completely different events, or two, that instead the tessera is indeed a refined cal king x corn hybrid that came to be because the original breeders bred and refined a suite of traits.

I adhere pretty strongly to parsimony, likelihood, and succinctness of the theory behind Occam's Razor. I think I'd have to support the latter aforementioned example.

Anyhow, I hope any of you that have gotten emotional upset by this thread would just take a step back and see that this type of discussion could actually benefit everyone. If what we brought to the table in these sorts of discussions was information to support our stances, instead of using slander and the "there's just no way it can be that way, you're an idiot for thinking that way" to try to "win" our beliefs...I think these types of threads would be great reads!

Once again, if anyone can help me procure a legally obtained wild-caught corn that would be great. Instead of going back-and-forth with everyone I'm just going to give it a shot myself. There's no way I could fail, as any results would shed a lot of light on what we've been discussing here. Have a great night everyone!

Mitch