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Morph Histories?

scmartin27

scmartin27

capio cum grano salis
Hello everyone!
I'm Sarah Mohr and I *think* this is the first time I'm posting in this forum...?
I've been into corn snakes for over 10 years, been breeding for almost that long, and I read these forums all the time - I just never post!

So today I'm actually hoping for some help: I'm looking into the history of each of the corn snake morphs (focusing on base morphs for now), and there are a few that I'm having quite a lot of trouble finding history on.

Here's a list of what I need:
Caramel - I know the original was found in a pet store in Cape Coarl, FL. and was wild caught. But does anyone have dates? I have Rich Z. as the person who proved it out.
Charcoal - I know the Loves called the original Charcoals "Pine Island" corns. Were they the first to prove the gene out, though? And who decided on the name Charcoal? Also, anyone have dates of those three things (finding the first one, proving it out, selecting a name)?
Christmas - I know the originals were found on Daufuskie Island, SC., but I do not know when or who found them. I also don't know who proved them out and when.
Cinder - Pretty much the only thing I Don't know about cinder is when it popped up and where. I know Rich Z was the first to prove it out, and when its name officially became "Cinder"
Diffused - Pretty much the only thing I know about Diffused is that the original was WC near Hastings (state? lots of states have a "hastings"). I don't know who found them, when they were found, who proved it out or when it was proven.
Lava - I know that the originals were caught by Gordon Schuett and sold to Joe Pierce in 1992. But I was under the impression that it wasn't proven as its own mutation until 2004? This seems off... 12 years to never breed a mutation to anything other than another one of the same?
Masque - Similar issue as diffused. I know they share an origin story, but masque was proven years later (mid 2000s?). This information was up on The Source years ago, but that information is lost.
Pied - I have literally no information on this gene... So anything will be helpful.
Strawberry - Once again, I have no information.
Stripe - Same... I got nothin. lol
Terrazzo - I know that Craig Boyd found these in the Florida Keys and called them Granite originally. I don't have dates or when/who proved it was a new mutation.

I know it seems like I haven't done much work on this, but I have a complete history of every other base morph (19 of them - including red coat, red factor, and Golden), so asking for help on the last 1/3 of them didn't seem too bad to me...? :)

Any help is appreciated, especially if that help points me toward books or forums that you know has this information. I've already done a lot of combing through Kathy's books, Chuck's books, and hundreds of forum threads. But There's a good chance I missed some of the information therein.

Thanks everyone!
 
scmartin27 said:
Caramel - I know the original was found in a pet store in Cape Coarl, FL. and was wild caught. But does anyone have dates? I have Rich Z. as the person who proved it out.
Click to expand...

I'll just cut and paste some text that I used to have on my SerpenCo website. First in reference to the Caramel gene, and then the section on the Butter Corns, since that is referenced in the Caramel section.

Caramel Corn

The history of this cultivar was covered in length in the writeup about the Butter Corn.

When I hatched out my very first Caramel corns back in 91, I had no idea they were anything different from run of the mill anerythristic corns. Baby corn snakes can be rather nondescript anyway, but when you are talking about anerythristics and babies that tended to be rather dull colored, well there was nothing to even remotely get me excited. Even the first Butter corns didn't look like anything special either. If someone had come along at that time and offered me a reasonable price for the entire clutch, I would have taken it in a heartbeat and never realized that I had just sold off the very first examples of a new genetic line.

So shed after shed these critters just didn't seem to be turning out into what I had expected them to be. For lack of a better name, some of the first record cards I have still have 'Yellow Anerythristic' on them, as that's about as close as I could figure out what they were. Bear in mind, at this time I only thought they were an odd expression of Anerythrism. And the 'Butters' could easily have been a likewise variation in a snow corn. It wasn't until a few years later when breeding trials with the then unnamed Caramels and Butters proved that they were NOT typical anerythristics nor typical snows. Now I know I could have just called the Caramels as type 'C' Anerythrism, as Bill and Kathy Love had another form of Anerythrism that was sometimes being referred to as a type 'B' Anerythrism, but the continuation of this A thru Z progression just didn't sit well with me. Besides, nine out of ten people could never produce 'anerythrism' anyway and seemed embarrassed to even try, so I felt something less tongue twisting and more descriptive of what this cultivar looks like was in order.

The background color can vary from a light yellowish brown to a light brownish gray color. The dorsal blotches can vary from caramel-yellow-brown to a rich chocolate brown. Doesn't sound all that attractive, now does it? But give them a chance. They will grow on you. Sometimes the subtle hues can prove to produce a more attractive snake than one with the garish neon coloration. This line has proven to be a unique simple recessive genetic trait and is the base stock for the Butter Corns (Amelanistic Caramel) and the Amber (Hypomelanistic Caramel) corns. Other lines using this genetic line are also in the works and will be announced in the future.

One project that should bear fruit this year is the combination of Caramel/Butter and Blood Red. Now I still can't figure out why I decided to do a project like this except for the age old problem of getting those 'what if?' types of questions in my mind. Realistically I'm presuming that a Butter Blood Red would probably look like a Yellow Rat Snake (Elaphe o. quadrivittata). So here I will have spent a few years of time and effort to produce a Yellow Rat Snake look-alike in a corn snake. Then there would be the Caramel Blood Reds produced. Hmm, so what would they look like? Got that in mind yet? Ok, so now what NAME would you think would be most descriptive of what they look like? Of the ones I've been able to come up with, which name would you think would be the most commercially successful for this new cultivar: (1) Dried Blood Corn, or (2) Blood Clot Corn?

One item of note that may be of interest is that it appears that type 'A' Anerythrism completely overpowers the Caramel gene when they are homozygous in the same animal. This is just a preliminary observation, based on a single Anerythristic Motley that hatched from parents that were both Caramel Motleys, so my opinion might change as more evidence is gathered.
Click to expand...

Butter Corn Snake

Back in May of 1985, my wife and I were vacationing in southwest Florida and happened upon a pet shop in Cape Coral. They had an aquarium with about a dozen or so wild caught corn snakes in it and one in particular caught my eye. It was a female and the coloration was a rather unusual straw colored ground color with reddish-brown blotches. I just thought it might make a rather interesting looking amelanistic so I purchased it to take home.

The first season, I bred that female with a snow corn male and produced all normal babies, which was to be expected. I kept back several of them to raise up as future breeders. The following season, I mated her with a typical amelanistic male and again produced all normal babies. I also held back some of those.

When the first group grew up, I bred them together and got a handful of amelanistics but none of them looked especially interesing looking. As they grew up, they did appear to be a bit more yellow than a run-of-the-mill albino, but not exceptionally so. The same results were obtained when the second batch grew up and were bred. When all was said and done, I had retained 3 males and 5 females that were amelanistics, and I also kept one female from each of the two clutches from the original female.

In 1990 I moved to Florida and ALMOST sold all of those particular animals to a guy that expressed interest in them. But it was Winter time, and I figured I would go ahead and breed them together before getting rid of them. So in the Spring of 1991, I bred the 3 male amelanistics to their sibling sisters and also back to the two older females. When the eggs hatched, a couple of the snakes looked like snows, but not quite since they weren't as white as they should have been. Also got some things that looked like anerythristics, but they didn't look quite right either. I thought maybe I'd better hang onto those adults a little while longer until I saw what those babies were going to turn out to look like.

Well, those 'snows' got more and more yellow with every shed and those 'anerythristics' got more brown than black and even had some yellow coloration in the ground color. Subsequent breeding has determined that the 'odd anerythristc' is a unique gene that is not a form of type A nor type B anerythrism and is definitely a simple recessive gene. I therefore named this form the 'Caramel'. The Butter corn is, for the most part an amelanistic Caramel (or Snow Caramel, if you prefer). The reason I say 'most part' is because I believe there is still another influence in that blood line that appears to control the amount and/or intensity of the yellow coloration.

Basically the Butter Corn Snake is an all yellow corn snake. It still retains the typical corn snake pattern both dorsally and on the abdomen, but everything is in shades of yellows and white. In some individuals the yellow ground color can almost fuse with the blotch coloration giving you an almost uniformly yellow colored snake.

As in apparently most of the corn cultivars, the Caramel/Butters have their own brand of mystery attached to them. A while back I got the idea of trying to produce an all yellow corn snake with sharply contrasting black blotches. Now this certainly seemed like a feasible project, since there are plenty of 'A' anerythristics available that have a noticeable yellow wash all down the sides of the head, neck, and most of the body. So why not try to enhance this by mixing the obvious yellow influence in the Caramel/Butter line with 'A' anerythrism? I am sorry to say that this project was a nearly complete failure. After working with several generations from this project, I have NEVER produced what I was looking for. As a matter of fact, and the reason I say it was 'nearly' a complete failure is because I produced some truly outstanding 'A' anerythristics out of this project. The mind boggling result was that most of the 'A' anerythristics resulting from this project completely lack any trace of yellow on them. None. Nada. Zip. So how in the world did THIS happen? Is there an axanthic gene lurking in that mix? And if so, what affect is it having on a normally yellowish looking corn snake like the Caramels and the Butters? And to complicate this even further, most of the Snows and Ghosts produced from this project will often exhibit exceptional amount of yellow in them! It's like the yellow is lurking in those anerythristics, but it takes the addition of amelanism or hypomelanism to bring it forth.

Just another puzzle in the corn snake universe, I guess.
Click to expand...
 
scmartin27 said:
Cinder - Pretty much the only thing I Don't know about cinder is when it popped up and where. I know Rich Z was the first to prove it out, and when its name officially became "Cinder"
Click to expand...

Well, for some reason I can find any writeup I specifically did on the Cinder (which incidentally I originally just referred to as a "Type C Anerythristic" and later referred to as an "Ashy Corn"). But I did find the below concerning the Upper Keys Corns where I made brief mention of it.

Upper Keys Corn Snake

I will be the first to admit that I have NO idea what a 'Lower Keys' corn snake looks like. Every corn snake I have ever heard about coming from the Florida keys seems to be called an Upper Keys Corn. Not sure exactly why that is. Either the Upper Keys are just teeming with corn snakes that the Lower Keys lack (which is sort of consistent with the fact that the corns from the Lower Keys are protected), or many people think that the Upper Keys begin with Key West and extend to the mainland. Seriously, I do suspect that each of the major keys in the Florida Keys might have it's own minor variations in the way the corn snakes coming from them appear, but unless you yourself go down there and catch them, or get them from someone entirely trustworthy, I would take such information with a big grain of salt.

The Upper Keys Corn is kind of hard to describe. In some instances it looks like something inbetween a hypomelanistic corn and a regular Miami Phase corn. There is usually very little contrast between the blotches and ground color. And often the abdomen can be pretty much patternless. Kind of long and lanky of body shape, looking a bit more streamlined that the typical corn. Nearly all of my examples are very mellow acting animals, and in some respects act very similar to the Amber corns in personality.

One interesting bit of information is that I have had some apparently Anerythristic looking babies hatch out of the line I have. The guy I got them from (Craig Boyd) said they were wild caught animals, so this is an interesting development. This is probably just some 'A' Anerythrism popping up, but I have never heard of them coming from the Keys. I certainly hope so, since the last thing we need is yet another genetic form of apparent Anerythrism!
Click to expand...

Now what is interesting is that my memory of the source of those Cinder/Ashy corns was not what I am stating here. A long time ago I did one of the Birmingham, AL reptile shows, and there was a guy there looking to trade a female Upper Keys Corn for something, and we wound up agreeing on a trade for an adult leopard gecko we had on surplus. Come to find out that the corn was gravid, so I hatched out the babies and kept some around for a new blood line. When they grew up, I bred them with snow corns to see if there were any of those particular genes lurking around in that gene pool. Nope. But I kept some of those babies, raised them up, and bred them together. So of course, I got anerythristics and amels, and certainly a snow or two, but some of the anerythristics just looked a little different to me.

So I am not sure about the real actual source of the animal(s) I got that actually produced this new gene for me. All that seems evident is that it did originate from the Florida Keys. But if my life were on the line, I would have to say what I wrote back then would have to be more accurate than my actual memory right now. This is not the only incident I can note where my aging memory does not jive with actual history.

So I spent years growing up those odd looking anerythristics and cross breeding them to Type A anerythrism and and also Charcoal, since it was quite possible that this was just a different expression of either of those known genes. In the meantime, of course I sold off a bunch of related offspring, and apparently Carol Huddleston hatched out some of those "odd" anerythristics as well. Since I still was not convinced 100 percent it was a unique gene and declined to give them a new name, Carol started calling them "Cinder" corns and marketing them as such. Personally, I saw a striking resemblance in their coloration to the endemic ashy geckos found on the Florida keys, once I had finally concluded that this was a new gene type, and wound up preferring to call them Ashy Corns. But I guess the marketplace preferred "Cinder Corn" and it stuck regardless of what I liked as a name.

I guess any snows out of that gene pool I sold off could have been amelanistic forms of the Cinders, but when you are hatching out thousands of baby snakes, subtle differences sort of become insignificant and easily slipped through the fingers.
 
Stripes were produced in europe in mid 80's and brought to the u.s. by ernie wagner. Didnt i send you the info?
 
Rich Z said:
I'll just cut and paste some text that I used to have on my SerpenCo website. First in reference to the Caramel gene, and then the section on the Butter Corns, since that is referenced in the Caramel section.
Click to expand...

You're a life saver, Rich! Thank you for everything! Whittling it down... !
 
What Remains

After re-reading through the messages and posts here, here's what I still need:

Charcoal
Christmas
Lava
Masque (kind of... assuming it shares a history with bloodred/diffused, I kind of just want to know when it was proven and by whom)
Pied
Strawberry
Terrazzo
 
Odd Question about Christmas

In many of the threads I've come across, people swear that Christmas is NOT allelic to hypo-a. But I've always heardthat it was...? What's the truth here? And who proved it out, do we know?
I've searched for it myself, however when typing "Christmas" into the search it brings up everyone's Christmas present snakes... -_-
 
STRAWBERRIES???

Thanks to everyone on here, and a few people I've PMd / emailed with, I'm down to one base morph that's on my current list... STRAWBERRY

Still barely any information.
I can't seem to find out who discovered it & when, who determined it was an independent gene mutation & when, and who discovered that it is allelic to hypo+christmas & when.

I have all this basic information for every other base morph so far... just not this one. (keep in mind, this is month's worth of searching online forums and books nearly every day. I know this thread is new, but asking on a forum like this is my last resort)

If anyone can help answer any of these questions, I'd greatly appreciate it!!!

Thanks in advance!
 
scmartin27 said:
Thanks to everyone on here, and a few people I've PMd / emailed with, I'm down to one base morph that's on my current list... STRAWBERRY

Still barely any information.
I can't seem to find out who discovered it & when, who determined it was an independent gene mutation & when, and who discovered that it is allelic to hypo+christmas & when.

I have all this basic information for every other base morph so far... just not this one. (keep in mind, this is month's worth of searching online forums and books nearly every day. I know this thread is new, but asking on a forum like this is my last resort)

If anyone can help answer any of these questions, I'd greatly appreciate it!!!

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Lol I spent today hunting down strawberry info from Joe. There's so much back and forth here and elsewhere about it being a variation of Hypo instead of an allele, etc. They look different, they look the same, they add red, they only add red sometimes...so hard to nail it down. :shrugs:
 
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