Ultra Mystery...

[Serpwidgets]

This is the biggest and best argument against Hybrids. They will inevitably get mixed into the gene pool.

This is a circular argument against hybrids. They are bad because they are bad.

I agree: that is the best argument that can be made against them. It isn't even an argument.

Let's not lose sight of why we are breeding these animals, particularly those of us breeding morphed corns. We are purposely steering the gene pool in a direction that suits our tastes. Whether the new source of genes is from purposefully engineered mutations, or a spontaneous mutation, or hybrids or whatever, it still comes down to the fact that "desireable" genes will be propagated and undesireable genes will not.

 

[Clint Boyer]

Like I said, if they are corn-like to me then as far as I'm concerned they're corns.

So I take this to mean that you not only support but endorse mixing of species with no accountability for the offspring.

You'll also notice it matters enough to some that they will sell whole projects to avoid being involved. It may not matter and seem irrelivent to you but we are not all in this for the same reason.

We can agree to disagree but I still maintain that responsibility for our actions remain.

No one here is trying to force ideas on you, just asking that you respect those of others.

P.S. I might also suggest a new name for your book: Corn-Likesnakes the morph book!

 

[Rich Z]

First off, let me address a couple of things Joe has said that need clarification.
1

I like to use Rich Z statements in arguments because he is respected and I am sure that he has this forum set up to notify him of any time that his name is used so he can monitor the comments and respond. His responses and opinions are always very interesting to read. I always chuckle to myself when I read about the history of the Caramel gene, which in fact was just brought up in this thread. I do not chuckle because of my opinion of the Caramel gene as a mutant type gene, but because of the story that we all except to show they are pure. I really like my Butter Motley Corns that I bought from Rich, but the originating Corn was bought from a Mom and Pops Pet Store. I found an Amel Corn in my local Mom and Pops Pet Shop that looked a great deal like an Amel Gopher Snake to me. Of course Rich Z’s expertise with Corns would make the identification of this originating Caramel Corn much more reliable and it was labeled as wild caught and confirmed by the pet shop owners. OK, that is good enough for everybody and myself included, but most likely the pet shop owners were into Tropical Fish or Dogs and Cats and did not have a clue about any kind of snakes. I could come up with many very plausible circumstances that may suggest that there is no proof of the purity of that particular corn.

First off, no, I do not get any automatic notifications if my name is mentioned here. Matter of fact, I don't believe this software has the capability to do that anyway. I just come in here on occasion and browse threads here and there, particularly ones which are of interest to me. Most do not get read by me at all, I am sorry to say.

Next, the Caramel gene was being carried heterozygously, apparently, by a normal, yet slightly different looking, wild caught corn that I bought in that local pet shop in Cape Coral. That animal was NOT a Caramel corn, as implied in Joe's interpretation of what I have stated in the past. I didn't hatch out Caramels (and Butters simultaneously) until two further generations down the road. Yeah, OK, I have no idea why they didn't show up in the first generation. Could be my natural bad luck, or maybe it was a spontaneous mutation that had NOTHING at all to do with that original wild caught animal. There is no way at this time to verify that, so I might as well stick with my assumption of that original female carrying the Caramel gene. Occam's razor approach......

2

The only problem I see at this point is that I have several Normal Corns out of an Ultramel Motley het Caramel X Various Morphs. What would they be called? Het for Goldust? They may not even be het for Caramel. What are Hets for Creamsicles called? I see that there are various color phases becoming available these days. I have very little doubt that Creamsicle blood is very wide spread in Amels these days. This is the biggest and best argument against Hybrids. They will inevitably get mixed into the gene pool.

Although I have no idea what your stock is comprised of, I do know for a fact that the GoldDust male I have is indeed positively 100 percent homozygous for Caramel. Several breedings using him have proven that to me beyond any shadow of a doubt. I have a whole slew of Caramels that have that GoldDust male as their dad.

Further, it is my understanding that the breeding of the Caramel into the Ultra Hypo line took place in Mike Shiver's care and had nothing at all, at that point, with anything Andy Barr had done. From what I recall from conversations with Mike Shiver, he had a female Amelanistic Motley het for Caramel that he got from me that he bred with an Ultra Hypo corn, for lack of a better male to breed it with. THAT was the beginning of the "Amber/GoldDust" line he produced, from what he told me. The question that needs to be answered is what is the TRUE origination of that Ultra Hypo line? Who actually caught that original specimen? To find the truth, we need to go back to the very beginning.

Right now this entire "controversy of the moment" is going on the word of a single person, who, in my opinion, has presented conflicting stories. Did Mike Shiver know at the time I got those animals from him the information he later related to Joe, or was that something new he learned at a later date? If it is new information, where did that information come from? If he knew it at the time I got those animals, then why would later statements be considered more weighty then earlier ones? Does that make me sound suspicious and distrustful? Well, heck, I can't imagine why I wouldn't be, at this point. For instance, if this was something Mike Shiver found out later, why was I left out of the loop in being contacted by him about it as soon as he found out? I believe he knows my stated preferences for "pure" corns, and common courtesy would have dictated he would have contacted me as soon as he was aware of this problem. But that didn't happen. Why not? Why has this cat (real or ficticious) been released from the bag NOW?

I have a few examples of the Ultra Hypos and some of the GoldDust corns. None are as noticeable of a hybrid (in my opinion) as those Frosteds I got from Andy Barr after some careful observation over about two years. I am looking at a LOT of babies from using that GoldDust as well as my original Ultra Hypos as parent stock and none of the babies exhibit any characteristics whatsoever that would make me doubt that they are as "pure" corn snake as anything else on the planet today.

As far as I am concerned, no one has proven to me that the Ultras really are a hybrid, and I am not willing to take a high dive off a bridge just on the say so of what I have heard so far. I think there is far too much chance that someone(s) may have misquoted someone, or the story has dropped some factual, or added some fictional, points for unknown reasons.

My take on it? Wait and see. I don't think all of the cards in that hand have been exposed quite yet.

 

[Clint Boyer]

A quote from JY on another forum:

10 minutes after I got a pair of ultra hypos I went to mark bell's table..where Keith..who works tables for them.says to me...you know it's a grey rat hybrid? right?...I says....hmm....no...don't know..and if people would know they would stop buying and selling them....

Maybe there is more info out there then what we have now.

 

[Carlos]

When Mike Shivers sold his corns I buy some motleys het for amel. breeders from him. I don't request picture before I got then, when I receive the box, as part of the breeding group was a female that look like a calico, I e-mail mike shivers asking him about that female and HE TELL ME THAT SHE PRODUCE BEAUTIFULL BABIES THAT ARE SOLD OUT VERY QUICKLY EVERY YEAR. I send a picture to Don Souderberg and as soon He tell me what that is I freeze her, sorry but I don't want that thing in my stock. So now who knows how many of Shivers motley line have those genes. I think I still have pictures of her in my old computer I will look for then. Carlos Lahitte

 

[Rich Z]

One question that needs to have answers found for, is this:

If the Ultra Hypo is indeed a hybrid, then what evidence of this genetic trait exists in whatever it is supposed to be a hybrid with outside of the corn snake line?

Because unless this trait generated spontaneously somewhere along the line, then what are the odds that the one non-cornsnake animal that was hybridized into a corn snake just happened to be carrying this previously unknown gene?

Of course, I am still curious about the Mike Shiver/Mike Falcon/Andy Barr relationship in all this. There is an earlier post where Mike Shiver and Mike Falcon were calling this Ultra Hypo line the "M&M Corn". That implies to me that Andy Barr is not even in the equation.

Seems like a lot of loose ends yet in this story. And something tells me we will never know all the details.

 

[ecreipeoj]

That animal was NOT a Caramel corn, as implied in Joe's interpretation of what I have stated in the past.

Rich, I am sorry if I misquoted the information that you have provided in the past. I was relying on my memory, which is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Now that you bring this up, I do remember that you said it was a normal but looked different. It probably looked a great deal like the Normals het for Caramel that are indeed much more yellow in color than other lines. I was using it as an example only and nothing more. It is very nice to have as much information on the discovery of all of the mutant genes that we are so fond of.

 

[ecreipeoj]

Any Corn Snake Mutant morph could be hybridized, by breeding it to a Gray Rat Snake. The Amel gene originated in Corn Snakes, but the Creamsicles are a result of a hybrid cross. The Amel gene did not originate from this cross and I do not believe that the Ultra Hypo did either.

I am not sure why anybody would say that the Ultra Hypo is a hybrid, except that they will certainly be tainted in many peoples minds because they will believe that if the Ultra Caramels (Goldust) are hybrids then the Ultras are suspect as well. They will most likely be lumped into the same group. The Goldust Corns are the corns that have been focused on as a hybrid, not the genotype of Ultra hypo.

There can be Ultras that are not hybrids and Ultras that are. No different than an Amel Corn and Creamsicle Corn. If an Ultra Hypo came from a lineage prior to the Goldust, then they could be “pure”. If you bred a Goldust to a normal Corn and then recover the Ultra Hypo gene from this cross, you would get the genotype of Ultra Hypo, but the phenotype would be a Hybrid.

Another possibility could be that the wild caught corn that carried the Ultra gene in one way or another was bred to a Gray Rat Snake which would have produced a hybrid without producing an Ultra Corn in the first place. I do not believe this was the case.

I have several emails from Falcon and I will go through them again to see if I can make any better since of the breedings that he did with the wild caught corn. The name of M & M Corn(“M”ike Falcon & “M”ike Shivers) came after Barr had gotten out of snakes. He is still MIA. The chain of possession, if we want to look at it that way, was from Falcon to Barr and then to Shivers. Barr disappeared and then Falcon obtain some Ultra “Ambers” (Ultra Caramels or Goldust Corns) from Shivers that were created with his Ultra Hypos.

 

[Kat]

I'm willing to believe that the ultra line has ratsnake hybridization in it not just because of what MS said... but rather from what I've seen in pictures and seen in my own experience... The headshape is slightly different, the behavior is slightly different... the eggs have been on the large side, and the hatchlings have been on the more aggressive side. Even if not all ultras are hybrids, the line I have most likely is, and since the one I have came from Shiver... well, the evidence I see fits. There's not enough there for me to come to the conclusion of 'hybrid' on my own, but with the statement made of their lineage... yeah, I'd believe it.

-Kat

 

[Menhir]

While thinking that my last posts are simply ignored, I go on writing something to the "Hypo is (not) a CornSnake Gene" - thing.
If this gen has it's roots in something like a grey rat, it should be compatible with such a hypo grey rat (or whatever it came from) - shouldn't it?

So, last year I've also seen a lavender x bairds cross - theoretically, a breeder who has nothing against these hybrid crossings could prove the Ultra Hypo Gene against the most well known hypo genes in other ratsnakes.

Am I wrong?

 

[Carlos]

Sorry KAT but I don't agree in the size of the eggs, all the egg that I got from the female ultra that I have are super small, and the hatchling are small too.
During the hatchling season I contact Mike Falcon looking to get some Ultra hatchlings and in he tell me that his hatchlings coming from small eggs and at that time only few are eating,

 

[mike panic]

I also noted very small eggs and hatchling as well as Ken Siffert. They all eat right out of the egg. Although I am steaming angry over this, I dont mind saying it in a forum that Mike Shiver at this point, cannot be trusted and anything he says should be taken with a grain of salt. I stare at these snakes for hours and they do not show anything to suggest that they are hybrids. I took a male to a local show yesterday to show him off and people were floored by him. Most of them just called him an Amber Motley as Mike Shiver did. I think these babies I hatched out will in fact look like the two adult males I have. I have asked Mike Shiver to provide information about these snakes so many times its not funny. I have gotten different stories on each occasion. I do not believe a word he says. I will share some of the emails when you guys are ready.

 

[mike panic]

a photo as he was yesterday

I took this before he went back into his enclosure

 

[Clint Boyer]

Menhir,
I don't know much about the rat cross hybrids. I agree that we can 'assume' purity when dealing with unknown corns. I think most of us here will agree to this method.
When possible proof of hybrid lineage emerges, we should not just turn a blind eye because they're cool. I think this will not happen anyway, unless the individual that discovers the hybrid line is also deceptive and passes it on without proper ID.

 

[Serpwidgets]

So I take this to mean that you not only support but endorse mixing of species with no accountability for the offspring.

You'll also notice it matters enough to some that they will sell whole projects to avoid being involved. It may not matter and seem irrelivent to you but we are not all in this for the same reason.

We can agree to disagree but I still maintain that responsibility for our actions remain.

Let me use a hypothetical example:

I am a spine perfectionist. I want all of my corns to have perfect spines. I go around buying corns expecting them all to have perfect spines.

Now, it's one thing for people to say, "I don't care, but since you do, that's your problem so you figure it out." Or to say, "I don't do x-rays, but I've never noticed any kinks on my snakes." It's an entirely different thing for people to say, "I don't care, but I'm going to tell this guy that I've x-rayed them so that I can make a sale."

It's another thing to get mad at people who don't x-ray all of their breeder and hatchling corns to find out if they have any imperfections.

What about people who are obsessed over whether hatchlings have any preference for lizards over mice? Do you need to also start exposing all of your hatchlings to lizards and mice on their first meal to be sure you know what they prefer so you can report it to everyone?

And you know that people keeping non "Hunt Club" Okeetee corns are bad people. because eventually some of those will get mixed into pure Hunt Club lines and the offspring might pass for Hunt Club and then the whole thing is ruined. This is a good argument for why people shouldn't be allowed to keep any corn unless it is from the Hunt Club.

If I don't care about whether or not snakes have mixed backgrounds, it is not my job to run around being a nazi about it. It doesn't mean I'm going to purposely lie to someone about it. I simply don't care. Others think I HAVE to care, like it is my obligation. It is not.

No one here is trying to force ideas on you, just asking that you respect those of others.

Yes, they are. By using the word "pure" they most certainly are. Not all ideas deserve respect. It's an absurd position to take. I understand the position, but it doesn't mean I have to respect it.

You'll also notice it matters enough to some that they will sell whole projects to avoid being involved.

There are people who would break up with a fiancee if they found out their great grandfather was black or jewish. I honestly don't see much difference here. I think both are irrational and neither deserve my respect.

 

[Clint Boyer]

So, after sorting through that retoric, I find that you won't lie about a hybrid you're selling but you won't tell unless they ask?

I don't think wanting to keep corn lines pure is absurd. I don't think that you really disrespect the people using the word pure. People will draw their own ideas about purity, I don't think they are abusing you when they use that word.

The idea of purity has long been studied by many professionals. All of the taxonomy study uses differences to define the species. I guess I just don't see all that as absurd.

 

[cka]

Couple years ago JY had a pic of an adult "ultra" corn over KS's photo gallery that he said he was not sure of it's "purity"...He also had a website (since defunct) with the same pic...when I first got online and started getting back into snakes he was someone I would email or talk to at local shows (nice guy, my daughter at the time thought he looked a bit like a troll, no offense, Jeff)...Anyway his comment via email was that there was some question about the lineage, that it was possibly a gray rat cross...To me, it was, in some ways, similar to Don Soderburgs "Frosted" corns, in how there was a lot of white around and in the saddles...I also know he wholesales corns every year so who knows how many "het" ultra's from his snakes are floating around in collections :shrugs:

For what it's worth I (and I'm sure ALOT of others) have followed the Ultra and other hypo breedings with keen interest and I think the results seen posted here are beautiful animals, certainly worth the time taken to prove out a new (?) form of Hypomelanism...I think it sez alot for all involved to come right out and post their findings in regards to the possible "hybridization"...

 

[Rich Z]

I am not sure why anybody would say that the Ultra Hypo is a hybrid, except that they will certainly be tainted in many peoples minds because they will believe that if the Ultra Caramels (Goldust) are hybrids then the Ultras are suspect as well. They will most likely be lumped into the same group. The Goldust Corns are the corns that have been focused on as a hybrid, not the genotype of Ultra hypo.

There can be Ultras that are not hybrids and Ultras that are. No different than an Amel Corn and Creamsicle Corn. If an Ultra Hypo came from a lineage prior to the Goldust, then they could be “pure”. If you bred a Goldust to a normal Corn and then recover the Ultra Hypo gene from this cross, you would get the genotype of Ultra Hypo, but the phenotype would be a Hybrid.

Another possibility could be that the wild caught corn that carried the Ultra gene in one way or another was bred to a Gray Rat Snake which would have produced a hybrid without producing an Ultra Corn in the first place. I do not believe this was the case.

I have several emails from Falcon and I will go through them again to see if I can make any better since of the breedings that he did with the wild caught corn. The name of M & M Corn(“M”ike Falcon & “M”ike Shivers) came after Barr had gotten out of snakes. He is still MIA. The chain of possession, if we want to look at it that way, was from Falcon to Barr and then to Shivers. Barr disappeared and then Falcon obtain some Ultra “Ambers” (Ultra Caramels or Goldust Corns) from Shivers that were created with his Ultra Hypos.

First off, that is not my understanding of the sequence of events. As of the Tampa show this past spring (2004) it is my impression that Andy Barr was still into snakes at that time. It is my recollection, perhaps faulty, that Mike Shiver told me that he got his Ultra Hypos directly from Mike Falcon. The issue revolves around the "purity" of the Ultra Hypo line and it's origination. The original story I heard from Mike Falcon was that the Ultra Hypos came from a wild caught animal that they ("they" is not defined at this point) thought was a naturally occuring hybrid. But later on, "they" decided that it was not. Not having seen the animal itself, nor a photograph, I have no idea on the criteria used to make any determination. So the question of hybridization goes all of the way back to the beginning of the Ultra Hypo origin.

I'm willing to believe that the ultra line has ratsnake hybridization in it not just because of what MS said... but rather from what I've seen in pictures and seen in my own experience... The headshape is slightly different, the behavior is slightly different... the eggs have been on the large side, and the hatchlings have been on the more aggressive side. Even if not all ultras are hybrids, the line I have most likely is, and since the one I have came from Shiver... well, the evidence I see fits. There's not enough there for me to come to the conclusion of 'hybrid' on my own, but with the statement made of their lineage... yeah, I'd believe it.

-Kat

As for the comment about head shape, I have seen all sorts of head shapes within lines of the corn snakes. Just as I have seen all different head shapes and sizes in black rat snakes and gray rat snakes when I used to work with them. But we do have a generalized perception of the shape of the head being a determining factor of what constitutes a Corn Snake, and what constitutes a "Rat Snake" heritage. The head shape in the Ultra Hypos I have worked with are nowhere near the "ratsnake" look that I saw in those Frosted Corns I got from Andy Barr when they matured.

Egg sizes from all of the individuals in my breeding colonies can be extremely variable. And size of the eggs can even vary from a single female from one year to the next. Probably my biggest eggs and most robust babies, as an average, seem to be coming from my Hypo Blood Red x Amber (my original line) project. If anything in that line is suspect as being a hybrid, then this stems well back into the early 80s when I got my original Blood Reds and original Hypmelanistics. Since Hypo Blood Reds can have rather small to average sized eggs and babies, as well as the Ambers, the combination of the two just happened to have produced a robust line of animals.

The babies I have produced from the Ultra Hypos/GoldDust line have not been excessively aggressive. Actually, if you want to use that as a hybrid marker, then you cannot exclude this consideration from the Sunkissed line, as they are EXTREMELY aggressive. And the head shape is quite at variance with what is typical in corn snakes, more like a kingsnake than anything else. But since Kathy Love says they are pure, and we have no reason to doubt her, then we accept it. I personally have never known Kathy to lie, so I fully accept her word, and I believe everyone else is of this opinion as well. Heck, for that matter, if I judged the "purity" of my corns based on attitude, I would have to say that most of my Pewter corns from the last couple of years are without a doubt "hybrids". Some of them are downright spitefull! But knowing the heritage of them, this is, of course, just fanciful jesting.

From what I can recall, I originally got a pair of Ultra Hypos from Mike Falcon back in 1995, of which only the female remains. Then later on in 1997 and 1998 I got more of them, of which I only have a male each from each of those years. I have worked with and bred amelanistic black rat snakes for several years, quite a while ago, as well as gray rat snakes. Although I have had several wild caught yellow rat snakes over the years, I have never actually bred them. Although there is really no black and white test to determine hybridization, there are hunches that evolve from many small factors that would lead to the conclusion of hybridization with a corn snake. It is my impression that the conclusion of hybridization in the Ultra Hypo and/or GoldDust line has not been reached through my observation of these animals. I have been working with the Ultra Hypos long enough that if I had become convinced they were a hybrid, they would have been long gone. As for the GoldDust line, I believe that issue centers around the Ultra Hypo origination and nothing inbetween. And to be quite honest about it, I seriously doubt that any "smoking gun" evidence will ever be forthcoming.

Sorry, but based on the source of information, and the above conjectures, I see no reason to accept anything at face value. Too many inconsistencies in the story line, facts that don't add up, and undetermined motivations from some of the major parties involved.

 

[ecreipeoj]

I do not think that it is absurd to want to keep lines pure. I breed Arabian Horses, and the purity of their lines is of the utmost importance to me and other Arabian Horse breeders. There is a registry that goes back to the beginning of time practically. I respect this completely and expect it. They have been blood typed for a very long time and recently they are being DNA tested. We take the purity of Arabian Horses very seriously.

Pure Corn Snakes to me are direct descendents from wild caught Corn Snakes. I have some in my Lava Okeetees. The lineage has been traced, by word of mouth or in writing if you prefer, to wild caught Corns. This was not done upon transfer of the snakes, but by investigating the chain of possession many years later. I truly wanted to outcross them to known wild caught Okeetees, to try to maintain the purity of the line. I failed to get any adult wild caught or descendent from wild caught Okeetees, but I was able to obtain some very beautiful female Okeetees from Kathy Loves line. The offspring from this mating, Lava Okeetee X Kathy Love Okeetee, are stunning. I do not have any chain of possession on the KL Okeetees except I know who I bought them from and they told me that they were from Kathy‘s line. I did not buy them from her directly. I have lost the purity of that line or the lineage back to wild caught corns in my opinion. Kathy’s Okeetees are as pure as the next guys, but she does not have any lineage back to wild caught corns. I still have pure Lava Okeetees from my line and I am raising some offspring from wild caught Okeetees to breed to them. I will have the lineage on both sides when I do this. The lineage of these offspring from my Lava Okeetees and the descendent of wild caught Okeetees will still be questionable at best. My Lava Okeetees were not caught on the Okeetee Hunt Club, but in Jasper County, so they would not qualify to many as Okeetees at all, but they are of the classic Okeetee phase and from wild caught descendents.

I bred these Lava Okeetees with an Amel Corn het for Anery many years ago and produced F1 Normal Corns that were het for Lava, and Amel and many of them were het for Anery A as well. The lineage of the female Amel Corn is not traceable in any way shape or form. The Amel gene was discovered in the 50’s. That is about 50 years ago and possibly 25 generations ago. Considering what I know about the industry and how snakes are bought and sold, I find it very unlikely that this Amel Corns lineage if there was a mythical way to learn it, would trace back to two wild caught Corns, but to many that are reading this, they would consider my Lava Corns to be Pure Corns. They are as pure as Rich Z’s Lavender Corns in every respect.

The idea that if I don’t know then it not true, is the absurd position to take when we are talking about the purity of Corn Snakes. It is similar to a husband or wife, seeing their spouse come home late at night, with the smell of perfume or aftershave, they hear rumors that they were seen with somebody else and on and on, but as long as someone does not tell them directly then they are being faithful to them. As long as they don’t know, it is not happening. If anybody with any common sense and with any deductive reasoning power, thinks that our Corn Snake Mutants as a whole do not have any rat snake blood in them, I think they are lying to themselves. I don’t see how anybody can say; if “I don’t know” it is not happening. There are thousand and perhaps 10 of thousands of peoples hands in the transfer of corns snakes with absolutely no records of the lineages what so ever. How can anybody say that their Amel Corn is a direct descendant to two wild caught parents? The only way anybody could claim this to be true is by the “if I don’t know method” of thinking. Amel Corns have been bred into just about every Mutant Corn Snake Morph that there is. Taxonomist obviously group snakes into certain groups and classify them. We are in no way attempting to maintain the pure genetic form that a Taxonomist would be considering. We are breeding Mutant genes to make pretty Corns Snakes. There is nothing scientific about it at all, except for the study of genetics and the captive breeding and care of these snake we are creating. A Taxonomist would basically laugh if someone offered him an Amel Corn to include into his study. He might even die laughing. That is really a joke! We are basically breeding Corns to create new wonderful colors and looks that appeal to us, much like people who are breeding Dogs. We are concentrating on the color or pattern and not creating Bull Dogs, but our Corn Snake Mutants no more resemble wild caught Corn Snakes any more than a Bull Dog resembles a Wolf in a taxonomic way.

The subject at hand are the Ultra Hypos and Goldust Corns. I have heard these Grey Rat Snake rumors for a very long time as many others have. I know for a fact that I have seen it in writing when we first started the Hypo Test Breeding Project. It was discussed and there was no real proof, or it was a naturally occurring hybrid, or I don’t see it at all in the Ultras that I have and on and on. “If I don’t know then they are pure“. What do you think now? Are they any different today than they were a year ago? Do you not know that hundreds if not thousands of Ultra decedents and Creamsicle descendants have been sold as Space Garbage through the wholesale market and mixed in with our Corn Snake Mutants? How can anybody say they still don’t know, so therefore they are pure? That is the only absurd thing that I keep hearing. These are only two very good examples of likely contaminants and if there are not more I am Mickey Mouse.

Many of us have been caught up in the Hypo Tests, the Ultra Mystery with Amel and the beauty of the Goldust Corns, and now we act like we get hit in the face by a sledgehammer. Everybody will have a little different opinion on the subject and we will all decide which information we want to use or discard so we will feel comfortable in justifying what we are doing. I am not one to rely on ignorance to come to any conclusion, which in my opinion is what “If I don’t know” equates to. A little common sense and deductive reasoning of the entire situation gives me no other position to take, except that our Corn Snake Mutants are not pure corns by my definition. So what right! Will any of us get a reality check? I seriously doubt it. We will continue down the same road as before. There will be Pure Okeetee Hunt Club Corns, Pure “If I don’t know” Corns, Creamsicles and now Goldust and/or Ultra Hypo Corns. I see Corn X “just about everything” hybrids as well. I am sure that none of them become space garbage and get bred to our Pure Mutant Corns either.

There are credibility issues with the involved parties in this particular case and you can either say that since there are credibility issues, then I believe they are Pure Corns or since there are credibility issues I do not believe they are pure Corns. I am sure that we will be very split on which conclusion we come to. The fact is there have been hundreds if not thousands of people in the chain of possession of our Corn Snake Mutants that I would say have credibility issues. Does this add to the purity of our Corns or detract from it. I have to add that this pertains to ALL snakes not just Corn Snakes. I guess the questions you have to ask yourself are: Do I believe there are Corn Hybrids being sold in the wholesale market and between hobbyist that is not known to the buyers? If the answer is yes, then will this condition contaminate pure corns in time? If the answer is yes, then has enough time past for this to have already happen? If the answer is yes, how does this make me feel about my Corn Snakes? I have to answer yes to all of the questions and I still love my Corn Snakes. We are Corn Snake Fanciers, like Dog or Tropical Fish Fanciers, we are not taxonomists.

I have tried to find Andy Barr for over a year. If he is still into snake great! I have ask many of the people on the forum by email directly if they had any contact info for him and everybody said no. Falcon and Shivers both told me that they did not know where he was or how to get a hold of him. Somebody must know. Lets find him and talk to him. All we can do is lay it all out on the table and then people will have to come to their own conclusions about what it all means. This is all very interesting stuff, but it in no way changes the big picture or does it?

 

[cka]

quote
"We are Corn Snake Fanciers, like Dog or Tropical Fish Fanciers, we are not taxonomists. "

&

"This is all very interesting stuff, but it in no way changes the big picture or does it?"

All too true...

I think before everyone involved gets too upset about this "revelation" and starts selling off a bunch of beautiful animals it would prudent to let as much information as possible develop...there is still a bunch of unknowns, as has been said above...if it is true who's to say that gene wasn't contributed by the original corn involved...Call them what you want, stick an * by them when you offer them, whatever, they are a beautiful "corn snake morph", NOT neccessarily a beautiful Eaphe Guttata Guttata or Pantherophis Guttatus or whatever ...