Transparent Hypo? Blue Ice?

[ecreipeoj]

Hi Cav,

Hi CAV,

How do you get pure wild-caught Okeetees from you CB "Trans line"?

Perhaps, I am stating it wrong. This snake is a descendent from the original 2.4 Okeetees that I bought. I was told they were F1’s from wild caught Okeetees which the Trans Hypo Okeetees came from. Considering that a previously unknown hypo gene was produced from these snakes, they appear to be Okeetee, but not the perfect Okeetee look we have selectively bred for in captivity, I feel they are most likely descendants from wild caught snakes. I have maintained that bloodline through inbreeding without introducing any new blood into it. I would have to check, but I think she is F2. I have F4’s from the same line. I refer to this line as the Transparent Hypo Okeetee Corn Snake line.

I started a different line from these snake by breeding a Trans Hypo Okeetee to an Albino that looked like an Albino Okeetee, which turned out to be het for snow. This line is the one which the “Blue Ice” came from. I refer to the hypos from this line as Trans Hypo Corns Snakes, without the Okeetee in the name or at least I try to be consistent that way. Some of the out crosses Hypos from this line look very close to the “Pure Trans Okeetees, especially the one’s which are 75% Okeetee. A Trans Hypo Okeetee X Trans Hypo yields 75% original blood line. From this line, I have produced Albinos, and Snows that have the “Okeetee” look. I have produced Anery as well, but they look pretty much like other anerys. I have produce one Anery male that was down right UGLY! when it was born, but I kept it since it was from this line. It is very hard to describe, but it just looks like a dirty brown color. It didn’t change much at a year, but now that it is an adult at three years of age you can tell why this snake looked so different as a baby. It has a tremendous about of pink on it like a pink snow. I guess the pink on it combined with the black made him look dirty brown. At a distance now, he still looks very odd, but up close he is very interesting looking. You can see the Anery underneath with the pink on top and in between the blotches. I produced a lavender this year that I labeled “What the H--! is this”. I think he is going to be the same way. He is not very old, but has a pink cast to his entire body. The photo (Attached) doesn’t show it, but it is there and I think it is making him look different. He is not ugly though. When he was born, he looked like a light chocolate hypo, but now I think it is just the pink on top of the lavender color.

I have out crossed the original Trans Hypo Okeetee line with the Sunkissed Okeetee this year and produced 13 normal looking hatchlings. I saved all of these, because they are from Kathy’s Okeetee line and combined with my line, I thought they would be very nice Okeetees. They are growing fast and have much wider and bolder black borders around their blotches like Kathy’s line. I also thought I needed new blood into the line and they are double het for two different hypo genes. I intend on breeding this line back to itself and trying to produce a Hypo Corns homozygous for Trans and Sunkissed hypo. I expect that I may not be able to tell the difference between a double homo and the other two types of hypos. I have not decided how to use these double het snakes to breed back into the original line. I am leaning toward not doing it and obtaining another Okeetee line with no hypo gene in it to out cross them to and keep the Trans Okeetee line pure. I am not actually hung up on Okeetee’s from wild caught stock. I just happen to have some. I think the “Okeetee” look is what I like and what I would purchase.

 

[ecreipeoj]

Oops!

Butter = Amel X Carmel, Oops!

I haven't had anything from Carmels of any type very long. I just bought some Butter Motleys from Rich Z last year and I love them! I out crossed them to a Snow Motley and got some extremely nice Amel Motleys, that are red and white with a very little yellow. I also got some partially striped Butter Motleys that I really like the look of.

I think my mistake came from day dreaming. Trans Hypo X Amel X Carmel = "Lemon Drop Corn" LOL

I got the Carmel (Type C Anery) from Rich Z's site about the Carmels. I have seen it referred to that on others sites as well. They were just references.

Why not Anery Type D for Lavender? Because it is purplish? Why not Type C for Carmel? Because it is a “Yellowish“.

Lavender is a simple recessive gene and so are the other types. There are many secondary genetic factors that we are not considering. Don’t ask, I do not know exactly what they are. Reducing genes, the gene which controls how glossy a snake is and things like that.

Anery A(Black Albino) x Amel = Snow
Anery B(Charcoal) x Amel = Blizzard
Anery C(Carmel) x Amel = Butter
Anery D?(Lavender) x Amel = Opal

Anery A/B/D? when combined with amel look very similar.
Anery A/B/C/D? vary from almost Hypo looking to extremely dark.

Anery C when combined with amel look similar at hatching, but Anery C is Hypoxanthic (Yellow Anerythristic) so “Snow” type hatchlings look like butter.

If I get things wrong, please forgive me, especially names. I shake someone’s hand sometimes and forget their name the next second. I have a lot to learn! I learn more about snakes each and every day. I am just playing with this, having fun, and trying to figure it out.

Joe

 

[Serpwidgets]

if there are unknow types of hypo and we can seem to figure it out why couldnt we take sum dna samples of regular hypos the other types..... then take some dna samples from some hatchlings and the parents....wouldnt this in a way see the kinds of gene.

The trick with this is that we'd need to have those genes mapped, otherwise we wouldn't know what we're looking for as far as which is different/similar. What you're talking about is what would need to be done first in order to establish the mappings. I would assume this could be done (at worst through brute force) by taking samples from a number of corns of known genotypes (amel, het amel, non-amel) and then finding the only locus on the whole genome which always correlates with that genotype in the samples. It should be relatively easy to at least narrow one trait down to a very small area of one chromosome, anyway.

From there, yes you could then (knowing which locus to look at) test additional corns and be able to say what their genotype is for that.

But to map differing types of hypos you'd have to do a lot of back and forth work. The problem is that you could have two same-looking hypos presumably expressing the same trait... but if you have two indistinguishable types of hypos and you don't know which are which, then your efforts to narrow down the location of this "one" trait are going to be confused. You're not going to find a correlation in the correct place, or depending on the circumstances, not in any place. So then you'd have to go backwards to the animals and try to separate them into "compatible" lines, based on ancestry, and try again to find some sort of correlation.

or maybe the hypos look diffrent do to the way they were incubated? could that be a cause?

It could, and the other thing is that it could just be a matter of "the other genes causing the rest of the look of this animal" being the difference, like if you were to make a line of amels from Miamis and another line from Okeetees. This is why it's so important to run breeding tests whenever something "new" pops up.

In this case with the Trans hypos, those tests have been done, and IMO there's enough evidence to believe that they are not the same genes causing the different hypo expression. If it were only a matter of incubation, then there would still be whole clutches of hypos hatching from crosses between the different types.

 

[ecreipeoj]

Out Crossed Trans Hypo Corn

A Trans Hypo Corn recovered from the Trans Hypo Okeetee Corn X Albino Corn line. They look very differant than a Pure Transparent Hypo Okeetee, but simular.

 

[Serpwidgets]

Joe:

I agree with thinking of Caramel and Lavender as "forms of anerythrism." It can be useful to see them that way sometimes. But I definitely prefer the names Charcoal, Caramel, and Lavender to the "add a letter" naming systems. Same goes for Sunkissed and Trans versus "Hypo B" etc...

 

[ecreipeoj]

Dream Corn information

I found this information about the Dream Corns by doing a search on the net. It is from Chesapeake Herptoculture, Captive Bred Reptles. Anybody, have contact info for them? Here is the address where I found this info.

http://www.kingsnake.com/chesa/Dream Corns.htm

Dream Corns
In the late 80's a friend of mine collected a unique, exceptionally bright, corn snake near Ridgeland South Carolina. In an attempt to produce similar corns, he was bred to a "pure" female Okeetee acquired from a west-coast breeder. The F1 babies matured quickly and were bred producing an F2 generation composed of normal and light phased neonates in numbers that suggested a typical recessive trait was at work. A few of the clutches however also produced albino (amelanistic) specimens. Subsequent breedings back to the west-coast female proved her to be the carrier of the stray albino gene. Since albino corns were a hot commodity at the time, the project to took a back seat to albino production. Unfortunately the original male died during this time and the project foundered as a result.

Several years ago I was fortunate enough to acquire one of the original F2 males. For all intensive purposes this male looked to be a light phase Okeetee. He was BRIGHT orange, instead of the usual vermilion red, and had the classic black blotch borders. He was bred to a pure locality matched Okeetee and I held back a pair of offspring for further breeding. In 1997 this pair of corns produced their first clutch. The results were initially disappointing as no light phase specimens were apparent! I was actually in the process of packing the entire clutch up for shipment to a wholesaler when I noticed the eyes of one of them were somewhat ruby colored. (This was interesting as neither the original wild collected male nor the F2 male had ruby colored eyes.) On CLOSE examination I decided that the little fella indeed had something different going for it. Carefully, I went through the rest of the clutch and came up with a female that had the same ruby colored eyes.

Though this F3 generation started out looking very similar to ordinary Okeetees they quickly differentiated themselves and developed the bright orange coloration of their grandfather (F1). The male lost virtually all black pigment and today looks much like a "sunglow" albino with darker eyes. The female, while still bright orange, retained the classic Okeetee pattern with bold borders around her blotches. These borders however, are a charcoal gray instead of the classic black.


F3 male

In 1999 these two corns were bred together and produced an F4 generation of brightly colored "Dream" Corns. (Unfortunately, the albino gene persisted and a few albinos were also produced.) It is noteworthy that, as neonates, it took close examination to differentiate the F3 generation from normal corns yet these babies were VERY distinctive right out of the egg.




Hatchling dream corns and some hets.

To me these corns were very distinctive from the established line of hypomelanistic corn snakes and I wanted to give them a market name that would set them apart. I settled on the name "Dream Corn" because this strain embodied what I thought were the most desirable characteristics of corn snakes. I also felt the name would gain easy acceptance as Bill and Kathy Love used "Tangerine Dream" to describe their strain of Honduran milksnake. Please note that I am marketing these corns as a strain and make no claim that this is a new mutation. Websters dictionary defines a strain as:

"descendants of a common ancestor; race; stock; line breed; variety"

Though these corns are quite distinctive I am not 100% sure they are not related to the current line of hypo corns. Lacking the space (and inclination) to test these two lines, I played it safe and priced my Dream Corns at the same level as Serpentco's Crimson Corns (which are simply hypo Miami phase corns). The Dream corns were introduced at the 1999 National Reptile Breeder's Expo in Orlando and were quite well received. All but one trio, which I retained, sold on the first day of the show!

My plan for the Dream strain is to continue crossing it to select Okeetees. At their best, these classic corns are celebrated for their color, size, pattern and vigor. Further incorporation of these qualities seems to be the only natural course for the propagation of a Dream Corn.

Dream Corns $100ea.
Hets $50ea.

 

[ecreipeoj]

I found them.

Never mind. I found an email address for the person who wrote the info about the Dream Corn development. I have emailed them and invited them to join the forum. I will be waiting for their responce.

 

[Rich Z]

The guy's name is Tony Dongarra. Howie Sherman (Strikers?) may know something about it as well.

 

[Serpwidgets]

"Dream" hypo...

Yep, that is Tony Dongarra (sp?) and it's the same one who I got mine from at Daytona 2002. I have a business card somewhere but I'm still not unpacked.

I've got the Dream hypo out right now, and she definitely has dark dark eyes, nothing like the ruby eyes I've seen in Kat's hypo, or my lav or my bloodred. This might be a secondary thing he's getting with that line, and mine is an oddball? I dunno.

I may disagree on the ruby eyes part, but he's definitely right about size and vigor. This "little" girl is growing like a monster.

 

[ecreipeoj]

e-mail returned undeliverable

The email I sent Tony Dongarra came back undeliverable. The address I used was [email protected]. I guess the search goes on.

 

[ecreipeoj]

What is this!

I have been watching this snake for a year. She is out of my Striped Lavender project line. She is not opaque. She does not have cream on her. Is this one of the secondary genes isolated out? The comparison photo is of one with one of her lavender sibling lavender. She does not look like any hypo that I have seen of any kind. Is this the gene that lightens stripes? I have no idea. I just wanted to share it with you and get your input. I will be gone for a day. See what you came up when I get back.

 

[ecreipeoj]

What is this!

A close up photo.

 

[Rich Z]

Tony used to be the promoter of the Richmond Reptile Show, but turned that over to Larry Kenton a year or so ago. Don't know if he is still active in this or not. Try finding Striker's Herps (Howard Sherman), and he may be able to help with some info.

 

[ecreipeoj]

Lavender (Hypo or reducing gene maybe?)

She is lavender. She is out of Normals het for amel/striped/lavender.

There is no other hypo gene in the line. She is the only one out of 275 eggs that has the milky/opague look. ( I am going to really look at the rest to see if this look is combined with something else)

What is she? Is she hypo or something else? Any guesses?

 

[Serpwidgets]

Heh, yeah at first glance it looks like a pastel ghost in shed.

A couple of thoughts on this one:

1- I don't think lavs have dark longitudinal striping. This one looks like it does. (?) Don't forget that if one grandparent (the stripe or the lav) was het for something else, then only one out of four F1 pairings (statistically) would be het x het for that other thing. (What the heck that other thing would be is still a big question, though.)

2- This is only my opinion, but I think the "hypo" effect of motley and stripe are an integral part of the pattern changes. What I mean is that I don't think this is a secondary 'rider' gene or anything... I think it's impossible to have a motley or stripe that is as dark as it would be when normally-patterned. But maybe this will be the beginning of disproving my theory.

 

[Rich Z]

What was the composition of the rest of the clutch that hatched out? This animal looks awfully similar to some Charcoal Ghosts I have hatched out. But see my note in the "Pearl" thread about making IDs on animals these days.

 

[ecreipeoj]

Totally Stumped!

The only other morphs I have gotten out of my Striped Lavender project group is: Normal, Amel, Striped, Amel Striped, Lavender, Opal, Striped Lavender, and Striped Opal. Mostly normals and amels of course.

The founding parents are a Striped Amel which has never thrown any other genes and a Lavender Het amel and she has only passed on those genes as well.

I guess there is always the possibility of hidden recessive genes, but they should have popped up 25% of the time out of het parents.

The photos don’t show it too well, but she is a lavender as well as her sibling. She is not a Hypo Lavender as we know them, but the lavender color is somewhat similar to the look of the translucent black on other hypos. Translucent Lavender?

Perhaps she is just genetically defective and always looks opaque. I guess time will tell if this is reproducible and if it will combine with other genes to cause this same effect or better.

Considering the numbers, she would have to be homozygous for lavender and more than two other genes that had to be expressed together to cause this effect or there would be more if it were just a double or triple homozygous animal. A few different type double and triple homozygous hatchlings have been produce from these same parents in the expected numbers.

I guess for now, I just need to grow her up and try to figure out who would be best to match her up with

 

[ecreipeoj]

The rest of the story.

I fired up my old computer today because I was curious if I could locate the “Scientist” that I purchased my Okeetees from which produced the Transparent hypos. The old 386 still booted up and I tried to remember how to use a computer without a mouse and by entering DOS commands instead of clicking. Somehow, I remembered the commands and found my mailing list. I can’t believe I use to mail out over 5000 price list a year, when that was the way business was done. Boy, times have changed!

I located the “Scientists” name and the information I had stored there. Gordon Schuett PhD from Wyoming. I first met him in 1992 and he bought some Orange Pueblans from me and I bought the Okeetees from him. I had a note at the bottom, “Genetics Expert”.

I ran some searches and I believe I tracked him down. He was a Professor of Biology at Arizona State, but is now the Curator of Herpetology at the Zoo Atlanta. Based upon, his professional employment and Academic Awards, which I found on the Arizona State University site, my entry of “Genetics Expert” was an understatement in our world of Herptoculture.

I sent out several emails trying to locate an email address for him and I believe I found him. I have emailed him and will be anxiously awaiting his response.

Joe

 

[ecreipeoj]

The end of the story

I received the email below from Gordon Schuett, Ph.D. about the Okeetee Corn Snakes which I obtained from him. It appears very likely that the Okeetee Corn Snakes which I obtained from him, came from F1’s out of wild caught Okeetees from Jasper County, South Carolina.

It seems likely that one of the Okeetees which he used as a breeder was carrying a new type of hypo gene which came from wild caught stock. I was lucky to obtain a male and female which were het for the gene and was able to produce a Trans Hypo Okeetee from them.

Other people obtained hatchlings from him that could have carried the gene and I have sold Okeetees which were Trans Hypo Okeettees and Okeetees het for trans hypo as long ago as 8-9 years ago. My space garbage has also been sold to wholesaler over the years and the gene has been spread around that way as well.

We know that the Trans Hypo gene is not compatible with the Regular and Sunkissed Hypo genes. It is possible that the Trans Hypo and other named hypos are one and the same. Test breedings next year should begin to answer some of those questions. I am confident that the Trans Hypo Gene came from the Corn Snakes I obtained from Gordon Schuett and is therefore the origin of the Trans Hypo gene.

Many of the stories you here about the Okeetees from Jasper County, and more specifically, around the area of the Okeetee Gun Club are very similar. I obtained the Okeetee Corn Snakes from Gordon Schuett many years ago and both of our recollections of the story behind them is not 100% clear. Some of my confusion, may have been separating his story from the story he was told by others which he passed along to me.


Joe

Hi Joe,

I did not personally collect the corn snakes you describe in your e-mail, though the snakes you obtained from me originated from the immediate area of Okeetee. The founder stock was obtained by several local (Jasper County, SC) herpetoculturists, and the offspring distributed (sold) to those interested in locality corn snakes. My brother, who was a zoo keeper at Riverbanks, purchased several offspring from those breeders and gave six (3.3) to me. Those animals I reared and bred in Laramie, WY, and you obtained several of those offspring. All adults in my possession were so-called "classic" Okeetee corns (though you know that could mean many different things; there are plenty of "ugly" corns in Jasper County!), and I do not recall that any had truly unusual pigmentation. It is possible that there was a light-colored male, but I cannot recall that that was the case. It's been too many years. I have no recollection whatsoever of the fate of other offspring, though I gave the adults to my nephews who lived in Denver at the time, and no further offspring were produced. I did not write a paper on them.

I hope this clarifies a few points. You can use this e-mail in your communications.

Best,
Gordon

Gordon W. Schuett, Ph.D.

Curator of Herpetology
Zoo Atlanta

Adjunct Professor
Georgia State University

 

[ecreipeoj]

Blue Ice and Anery het Blue hatchlings

This clutch was a result of a Blue Ice X Anery poss Trans Hypo breeding. The female Anery was carrying the Trans Hypo gene and the resulting hatchlings were Blue Ice and Anerys. This is the first time that I have bred a Blue Ice (Anery/Trans) to a Anery het Trans. The expected 50% Blue and 50% Anery clutch was produced. The Blue Ice is simply a homozygous corn for Trans and Anery. The hatchling Blue Ice have a different appearance than any Ghost (hypo/anery) that I have produced.