Sunkissed Lava?, Sunkissed Amel? Sunkissed Anery?, Sunkissed Head Patterns

[ecreipeoj]

I have been waiting for this clutch to hatch for a long time. The parents are from my test breeding between Lava X Sunkissed in 2003. I used a Lava Corn that later proved to be het for Snow in that test breeding, so the 2.5 Hets for Sunkissed Lava that I was breeding this year, where all poss het for Snow. I knew these poss het genes may complicate the identification of some of the hatchlings if they showed up, but it could also spice things up a bit.

The head patterns and other pattern traits of Sunkissed have been a topic of discussion lately, that it would be very nice to get into in more depth. This clutch will be a very good sample to look at and I have one more clutch due to hatch even later than this one, so there will be more numbers. Rich Z has also hatched F2’s from Sunkissed Projects so there should be quite a few hatchlings from these Sunkissed F2 projects to compare the head patterns on.

I do not have a great deal of experience with the Sunkissed, but I did hatch out my first clutch of Sunkissed this year and several projects from the Sunkissed like, Hets for Sunkissed Anery Stripes. From what I gather so far, it seems as if the head pattern on Sunkissed is linked to the Sunkissed gene and it does not show up in Hets for Sunkissed. This is consistent with what I have seen this year, although the numbers are limited.

So what morphs does this clutch contain? Serp and I were discussing what a Sun Lava or Lava Sun would look like and he said, that I would just be creating another one of those “Amel” looking things or something to that effect. My very first impression of the most extreme “Amel” looking snake in this clutch was that it was a Sun Lava, but is it? My first impression of the next most extreme “Hypo” looking hatchling was that it was a recovered Lava, but is it? There were several eggs that had not pipped, so I cut them open as I usually do. One had a small slit in it and I suspected that it was dead in the eggs, which it was. It appeared to look very similar to the “Amel” looking hatchling in the photo. There was one more that was dead in the egg and it appeared to look like the “Hypo” looking hatchling. The rest of the eggs appear to be still alive and one looks to be a “Ghost”, but perhaps not an Ice and one appears to be a Snow. Will we get to see a Sun “Ghost”/Anery or Sun Snow?

 

[ecreipeoj]

I think that Serp should explain his head pattern theory. These first two photo are of a few Sunkissed that I hatched out this year. The second photo is of a clutch of hets for Sunkissed Anery Stripes. The same male Sunkissed is the father of both clutches, last photo.

 

[Serpwidgets]

I think that Serp should explain his head pattern theory. These first two photo are of a few Sunkissed that I hatched out this year. The second photo is of a clutch of hets for Sunkissed Anery Stripes. The same male Sunkissed is the father of both clutches, last photo.

Heh heh. Well, my theory (at this point) is that sunkissed affects the head pattern. It's hard to describe in words, but it's basically a "smooshing" effect, like if you had formed a piece of chewing gum into the typical "spearpoint" and then stepped on it. I see the "sunkissed head pattern" in most if not all of the sunkissed corns in your and Rich's pics, but on very few of the non-sunkissed siblings.

But keep in mind that any pattern trait is going to have variation, too. I just think that the variation on sunkisseds is often going to be far outside the "typical" range. I'm not sure whether to think the "ringneck" thing is part of it or not. :shrugs: (How's that for squirming?)

IMO the pics in the first post are an excellent example of this. Notice the very plain "garden variety" head patterns on the non-sunkissed siblings. Coincidence? (So far, IMO probably not, but still possible.)

The second set of photos are interesting. Stripe seems to affect the head pattern, too. I don't know if it's the gene or just selective breeding that does it in stripes and/or how much it effects hets for stripe. This may explain some of this with the normals het for sunkissed stripe, but I wouldn't quote me on that. I just don't want to derail the whole idea yet because some "tweeners" showed up.

I would add that I've had two clutches from Zammy (my sunkissed female with a smooshed head pattern) and the ones from Zammy to "Lavender with deadbolt head pattern" all had the father's head pattern. This year, the ones from Sunkissed to Anery Motley showed a little more squishing. IMO the real "proof in the pudding" will be if this group exhibiting everyday head patterns throws:
Normals with normal head patterns, and
Sunkissed with squished head patterns.

At that point (and if your results and others are consistent or mostly consistent) I would be more convinced of a real connection.

For now, I would not say "if you hatch sunkisseds from hets they will all have smooshed head patterns" though, but I would say "it wouldn't surprise me..."

 

[Shaky]

Dang, Joe

It seems like you've opened a can o' worms.
If there's no telling through breeding trials, where does that leave us?

 

[Shaky]

Further,...

Someone had better breed for pure morphs without a trace of hets to use simply as an impartial breeding trial partner for other "guess what" snakes.
Eventually, you could probably make a fair bit of cash doing breeding loans with "pure" morphs.
Honestly, how soon before its all so confused that we just throw up our hands and say, "This one's some kind of amel. This one's looking kind of anery. This one's some kind of hypo."

 

[Serpwidgets]

Someone had better breed for pure morphs without a trace of hets to use simply as an impartial breeding trial partner for other "guess what" snakes.
Eventually, you could probably make a fair bit of cash doing breeding loans with "pure" morphs.

Nobody seems to have taken any interest yet. I had a hypo proven not het ultra or amel or lava (and definitely not a sunkissed) up for sale for quite some time. No interest. She's now somebody's pet.

 

[ecreipeoj]

Up Dated Photos

I thought some up dated photos might be interesting. I still have one more clutch to hatch, but this is the four different phenotypes that I have came up with so far. So far I have hatched out a lot of normals and quite a few Sunkissed, but not too many other interesting morphs. The Amel gene is in a pair of the Hets for Sunkissed Lavas, and the Anery gene is in a few of the others. I did hatch out several Anery Sunkissed, but none of them were viable.

They have all shed and I believe the four genotypes are Amel Sunkissed, Lava Sunkissed, Sunkissed, and Lava. The Amel Sunkissed and Lava Sunkissed have some peachy pink coloration on their sides much like Rich Z’s Sunkissed Lavenders do and their patterns suggest Sunkissed. The Lava Sunkissed is also quite different than the Lava in the photo as well. The Lava in this comparison photo is one that has a lot of bluish cast to him. I have seen this type of bluish color on other hatchlings, like the female Lava that Hurley has, but it doesn’t seem to last. I have also seen this bluish look on some Anerys from my Lava Lav projects but it also fades with age. This bluish head markings and cast in the background has shown itself in several different lines of the Lavas, so it must be a trait of the Lava gene, but it only last in the Ice and then only on the head.

 

[ecreipeoj]

Here is a pretty good photo of the Lava which shows the bluish cast in the back ground color and especially on the head. The other photo shows the peachy coloration on the Amel Sunkissed and Lava Sunkissed, but the photo is a bit blurry. This peachy colorations really stands out in person. It is a bit odd to see pink sides on an Amel Corn.

I would also say that the pink back ground color is a Sunkissed trait when homo with another trait. We had seen it in Sun Lavs, Sun Lavas and Amel Suns.

 

[Shaky]

Ok!

I must admit that that's a nice crop for a "what if" clutch.
Is it frustrating, though, to have to do breeding trials on these to figure out what the heck they are?
Are we yet to the point that breeding results still won't prove the genetics?

 

[LizardMom]

Been waiting for updated photos of those beauties. Really spectacular coloring they're developing.

I suppose it may take a lot more test breeding in the future, but what fun the process will be.

Jeeze, I want a Lava!

 

[ecreipeoj]

Is it frustrating, though, to have to do breeding trials on these to figure out what the heck they are?
Are we yet to the point that breeding results still won't prove the genetics?

The genetics of the Lava and Sunkissed have already been proven to be independent mutations, though the efforts of many breeders. I will never be one, to say that we can not prove out the genetics of our Corns. We have a much better understanding of the different types of hypos in our Corns today that we did a year and a half ago. It is amazing how far we have come in a very short time. When I first became involved in this forum, there were two known hypos, and now we have Hypos, Sunkissed, Lavas, Ultras, Ultramels, and Christmas. This is actually quite amazing if you think about it and it has all be made possible by this forum. Communication can be a very powerful tool.

The parents of these offspring, 2.5 Hets for Sunkissed and Lava, were also 50% poss het for Amel and Anery since their parents were a Lava het Snow X Sunkissed. We could also throw in the possibility of a new “Mimic Motley”, since Carlos produced some from the Lava het Snow that started this project. This was their first season to breed and many of the clutches were small and/or had poor fertility. I should be swarming with offspring from this group next year.

I expected that I would easily be able to pick out the Lavas, Sunkissed and any Anery, Snows or Amels that showed up in the clutches. The only questionable morphs would be target morph of Sunkissed Lavas. If the Anery and Amels genes matched up in the pairs then their would be the possibility of Amel Sunkissed, Anery Sunkissed, Snow Sunkissed, Amel Lava, Ice, and Snow Lava. Many of these morphs may not be easily identifiable. I think that a Sunkissed Snow might be interesting with the different pattern, peach sides and perhaps some greens and yellow showing up that we sometimes see on the Sunkissed. Do you think that the peach sides of the Sunkissed will show up when combined with Caramel? That may be a very interesting match. I have some project snakes coming up that can produce that morph. It is actually possibly to produce Snow Sunkissed Lavas, or Amel Sunkissed Lavas form this group. The Amel Sunkissed above could be homo for Lava and I may not be able to tell.

So far one of the adult males has been proven to be het for Anery and the other male has proven to be het for Amel. At least one of the females that has been paired with these males has carried the same extra genes as he did. They were set up in 1.2 and 1.3 groups to begin to isolate out any possible genes they may be carrying, but this type of testing is a shot in the dark. It doesn’t prove what your hets are not carrying, but only what they are carrying if you get a match. Next year, I will be able to tweak things a bit with the information that I got this year and get better results, but my main interest were the Sunkissed Lavas, or Lava Sunkissed. For some reason, Sunkissed Lavas sounds better to me. This project began as a test for compatibility between the Lava and Sunkissed hypos. I am very glad that I kept them for project snakes. .

Every time you do any project such as this, there are lots of 66% possible hets in the clutch. For example the Lava above is 66% poss het for Sunkissed. The Sunkissed is also 66% poss het for Lava. There is no doubt in my mind which of the above Corns are these morphs. I am fairly confident which one is the Amel Sunkissed and which is the Sunkissed Lava as well. Lavas can vary quite a bit from project to project, but I have never seen this much variation in clutch mates and I have never seen peach sides on a Lava either.

I will not be trying to prove the genetics of each and every one of the hatchlings from these clutches. I will not be keeping any Normals, or Amels from these clutches. Obvious hold back might be some female Lavas poss het Sunkissed, and female Sunkissed Poss het Lava. I will be holding back any of the obvious new double homos in the clutch like the Amel Sunkissed and Sunkissed Lava. I am still hoping for an Anery Sunkissed. I have a clutch of 16 eggs due in a couple of weeks. I have actually produced 5 of them this year, but all of them were balls of kinks. I changed my incubation techniques this year a bit, due to a new snake room and I have had some disappointments. Time to go back to the old ways.

When these snakes are raised up, I can either breed the Sunkissed Lava X Lava poss or Sunkissed Poss and see if they are carrying the other gene in the combo. I could also breed them back to one of the male het for Sunkissed Lava and prove them out that way, but you would get more poss hets from that breeding. I think a Sunkissed Lava Lav, might be an interesting morph. From what I have seen of Rich’s Sun Lavs and my Lava Lavs, I don’t see how the combo would not be better than its parts. The slight differences between some of the hypo when combined, may have a very cool effect when combine with genes like Lavs or Bloods.

All of the offspring that are sold from this project will have the information passed along with them about what genes that are possibly het for. If the new owners want to test breed them to find out which genes they are carrying, they will have a starting point. I think we are at a day and age in the Corn Snake Hobby/Business, that many of the cutting edge snakes will have to have their genetics proven in the long run. For example, I bred a Coral Snow X Sunglow Motley that is poss het for Hypo. I thought she was homo for hypo, but now that this may not be the case, I produced an entire clutch of Amels het for Ghost Motley. Their patterns are very cool, but I can not tell if any of them are homo for Hypo as hatchlings. If the genetics of the mother was known, I would have produced Hypomels het Anery Motley and any and all future offspring would have been known to be homo for Hypo.

If a breeder can say for certainty that his Corns are Homo for Coral Motley, or Hypomel Motley, then there is some added value to them. It would be nice to be able to produce a Snow Sunkissed Lava one day and know its genetics when it is born, but this will not be possible for many years.

 

[LizardMom]

I think what you are talking about is why I am so fascinated with corn snakes. There are innumerable possibilities with just the older morphs, but all the 'new' hypo type combos are so interesting.

My main problem so far is that I have not been in the hobby long enough to actually see any of these new hypos up close, and I know that the camera does not always capture every nuance of color.

My other connected problem is trying to evaluate just what each of the hypos adds, other than just removing black. The sunkissed seems more orange-y to me, but I'm not sure that is an accurate portrayal.

As someone who has been breeding corns, and testing out the various hypos, it is probably easier for you to determine which is which in a multi clutch as the one above. At this point, it just gives me a headache, but I'm reading and looking at pictures. Hopefully, eventually it will click. Otherwise.... :crazy02:

 

[ocboat]

I don't mean to hijack your thread but thought that this unique head pattern on this hatchling male Sunkissed might belong here.

 

[CrazyCorn]

I must hand it to you Joe, those are some killer babies. I hope to see more sunkissed and lava morphs in the future. I also want to see some charcoal morphs, the Lava charcoals were nice looking even if they did resemble the Ice corns, I think with some selective breeding they could really color up.

 

[ecreipeoj]

I don't mean to hijack your thread but thought that this unique head pattern on this hatchling male Sunkissed might belong here.

That is the coolest head pattern I have ever seen on a Sunkissed! The head patterns on Sunkissed is one of the differences between from the other hypos.

I only have experience with hatching Lavas, Sunkissed, and Hypos. I have a couple Ultramels and Goldust, but no Ultras. I have seen a few Ultras at Snake Shows, but not very many. I haven’t seen Christmas in person either. A lot of people say that the Sunkissed are very orange, which they are when they are adults, but it is not a orange color like we see on some Amels. As you can see in the above photo of a Sunkissed hatchling they are a brownish color when born. Sunkissed also have very dark, almost normal checkering on their bellies.

The Lavas are born orange, and are more similar to an Amel than a Hypo. It almost seems as if the Lava gene is adding orange to the equation. Areas that would normally be white on an Amel are filled in with orange when they are homo for Lava. The black areas are changed to a purplish/gray color.

I dug though some of last years photos and have attached a few of hatchling Lava Corns. Most Lavas are very orange, but a few of them are have a reddish color to them. As you can see in the comparison photo of the Original Lava and one of his sons, the original Lava was very dark and reddish compared to most Lavas that I produce today. I have never reproduced the look of the original Lava. I picked out a photo of a hatchling Lava that is on the reddish side and one that has a very blue head. The one on the floor is what most Lava Corns look like when they are hatched. The comparison photo of the adult hypo Corns, is of a Lava Okeetee, Sunkissed and Hypo, all of which are females. As you can see in this photo, the Sunkissed are very close to being as orange as the Lavas as adults, and you can see the yellowish/greenish coloration in the blotches of this Sunkissed, like many people have spoken about. All of my Sunkissed do not have this coloration, but it sure is a very nice look and helps to separate them out from the others when it is present.

All of the hypos reduce the melanin in Corns, but to different degrees. Some of them also seem to have other effects that we are just beginning to figure out, such as pattern differences and perhaps the addition of color. In my opinion, the order of melanin reduction from least to most in the big three is easy. Hypo, Sunkissed and Lavas which is also in the order they were proven. If I were to add the Ultras in, my opinion of the order would be Hypo, Sunkissed, Ultra, Lava, and Ultramel. I do not have enough experience with Christmas, but it seems as if they would be place on one side or the other of Ultra. I have only seen a hand full of Ultras, but the ones that I saw were more extreme than a Hypo, and they were all on the yellowish side as well, but that could have been from a Caramel influence.

 

[LizardMom]

Thanks, Joe! That really helps! I've been driving myself mad over trying to classify the various hypos in my head to get a handle on just what they add. And I'm still studying up on the differences between hatchling appearance and adult coloration.

By the way, I sent you an email.

 

[fetange]

Hey!
I just have to ask you ecreipeoj, when I saw your Lava you've got in your clutch I was shocked. Your little hatchling looks exactly like my baby I've got from a pair of normals (maybe outcrossed bloodreds). I've post a picture of mine and I borrowed your picture just to show you wich one of the hatchlings I meant.
The only diffrence I can see between them is the color on the head and the headpattern.
What do you say? Maybe I'm crazy and my baby is just a normal like he's siblings, but he does look different.

/Angelica

 

[Serpwidgets]

What do you say? Maybe I'm crazy and my baby is just a normal like he's siblings, but he does look different.

/Angelica

What do you mean "maybe?" :santa:

 

[ecreipeoj]

Hey!
I just have to ask you ecreipeoj, when I saw your Lava you've got in your clutch I was shocked. Your little hatchling looks exactly like my baby I've got from a pair of normals (maybe outcrossed bloodreds). I've post a picture of mine and I borrowed your picture just to show you wich one of the hatchlings I meant.
The only diffrence I can see between them is the color on the head and the headpattern.
What do you say? Maybe I'm crazy and my baby is just a normal like he's siblings, but he does look different.

/Angelica

Your snake may have a bluish cast to it, but it is not a Lava. It appears to be a normal to me.