Ultra Mystery...

[ecreipeoj]

Mike, I think that all of the snakes from this line are very beautiful. The Ultra Hypo gene is extremely interesting and very different than anything that we have came up against before. I think that we can get an idea of what the results certain matches will produce and with others, it will be difficult until we know what genes they are carrying.

This is the reason I said that perhaps the best way to reproduce the Goldust at THIS time would be to breed them to a Butter Motley, because the out come would be half way predictable. Some of the other snakes that are Caramel in appearance may not be what we think they are. Goldust X Goldust would obviously be a good match if somebody had that pairing.

I think that some thinking still needs to be shifted from Shivers way of thinking, since he was using the wrong genetic rules, to what we know now. We know that an Amber is Homo for Hypo and Caramel. Shivers seems to have called a Goldust an Ultra Amber and an Amber could be either a Ultra Caramel or true Amber, since many people have produced Standard hypos out of the Ultra line.

A great example of the difference in Shivers thinking and the new way of thinking about the genetics of this line is Kat’s Motley from this line. Shivers sold it to her as an Ultra Motley. We all accepted that for a very long time. This was the phase he called Ultra, not the Hypo Ultra. Now we know that what Shivers was calling an Ultra is actually an Ultramel.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out by next breeding season. I am sure that we will figure the genetics out completely if we haven’t already. The Standard Hypo gene in the mix will certainly cause confusion. I am sure that everybody’s opinions on the ENTIRE Mystery will vary just as much as they do on most other subjects.

 

[mike panic]

I have a butter motley from the same clutch as both of the male ultra caramel motleys. She will be bred by only one of them because I have to single out which one is het for amel(if any of them are) Will that be a good test breed or will it be a bad idea because they are related? Also, Can you post a photo of an adult golddust Rich? Thanks. Mike

 

[Serpwidgets]

what we are calling a goldust? the female in the water dish is a clutchmate who at the time I was told was a caramel het for amber. The first female when bred to both of the motley males threw off butters of some sort. I also included a photo of both of the butters in the clutch as well as what I thought is an ultra caramel. What would you call each female and each baby?

There are three genotypes we are concerned with:
1- Amel
2- Ultramel
3- UltraHypo

A- We can all easily identify an amel, so that's easy.

B- If it has amelanistic offspring, it cannot be a straight UltraHypo, therefore it must be an Ultramel.

C- If it is crossed to a known amel or carrier of amel and, with a significant number of offspring like 8 or more, no amels result, then it is an UltraHypo.

(I believe the term GoldDust is being applied specifically to the Caramel Ultramels, and not just the regular UltraHypo Caramels.)

Your male appears to be an Ultramel Caramel, or GoldDust if you prefer. He has amelanistic kids. See rule B.

The first female appears to be a GoldDust, too. The butters appear to be as amelanistic as any other amel or butter. See rule B.

The second female appears to be an UltraHypo Caramel or just a caramel. Not counting the caramel morphs, has she produced any non-normal offspring? (That is, Hypo-looking or Amel-looking?)

The amelanistic kids should be (genetically) just butters.

 

[Serpwidgets]

Mike, in post 437 I would suspect the final hatchling is an UltraHypo Caramel but I can't tell for sure from this angle. The Ultramels have almost amel eyes, if that makes any sense. You can probably see it in your male. That seems to be one of the ways to tell.

 

[mike panic]

thanks Serp, that last thread helped me understand quite a bit more. I appreciate it.

 

[Serpwidgets]

a lightly colored caramel motley het for ultra or something else. She is the mother to the clutch of "whatever motleys"as I like to call them. I bred both male ultra caramel motleys too her. What is she.

What outcome did you get from breeding her to an ultra caramel motley?

If you want to test her next year, cross her to a butter motley (or anything amelanistic, but a butter motley will get you better offspring.)

If she's a caramel motley het Ultra, you will get half caramel motley, half ultramel caramel motleys.

If she's an ultra caramel motley, you will get all ultramel caramel motleys.

If she's a caramel motley het amel, you'll get half caramel motley, half butter motleys.

If she's just a plain caramel motley not het for anything, you'll only get caramel motleys.

(This leaves out the standard hypo gene... she may or may not be carrying or expressing that, too.)

 

[gardenmum]

Hey Mike,

What that ultra gene did for those caramel babies you posted in #439, all I have to say is WOW! Those are absolutely gorgeous, especially that firts one. Congratulations on a great breeding.

 

[Clint Boyer]

I agree with you Clint 100% . What is your take on the answer what do you think we should do, we all what I think should be done

I think we should (and will) do just what suits us individually.

I'm not even going to try to explain how someone should feel about the issue, there are just too many points of veiw. None are wrong in my opinion.

 

[Rich Z]

Also, Can you post a photo of an adult golddust Rich? Thanks. Mike

Mike, I have already duplicated many of the photos of some of the babies from the GoldDust male in this thread alone. I believe a photo of the male is already in here somewhere.

 

[Serpwidgets]

I have a butter motley from the same clutch as both of the male ultra caramel motleys. She will be bred by only one of them because I have to single out which one is het for amel(if any of them are) Will that be a good test breed or will it be a bad idea because they are related? Also, Can you post a photo of an adult golddust Rich? Thanks. Mike

IMO the best test would be to put each of the males to different amelanistic females. The butter motley female sounds like a very good match, since you won't get "generic" hatchlings from such a cross. (It wouldn't be such a bad thing to hatch a bunch of butter motleys, eh?)

Inbreeding may or may not be a problem, it really depends on the individuals, how closely they are related, and how many "bad genes" they have in common.

For the other male, any amel female (amel, amel motley, butter, butter motley, snow, snow motley, etc.) will tell you what he is.

 

[ecreipeoj]

I'm not even going to try to explain how someone should feel about the issue, there are just too many points of veiw. None are wrong in my opinion.

Clint, I agree with you 100%. I hope that you did not think I was directing my Corn POOL analogy at you directly, because I started with a quote from you.

I disagree with you about the comparison between Arabians and Corns however. My Arabian Horses have one baby per year, not 12 - 50 and their lineages go back before any of us were born. Corn Snakes on the other hand are not Arabians, in any possible conceivable way that we look at them.

I am going to get off of my Corn POOL kick, because the people creating the POOL are not reading this anyway.

Clint’s point about how he is not going to suggest how we should all FEEL about this Mystery has been my underlying theme if you will.

I have not been on an Ultra bashing kick. I have not been on an Ultra “Amber” bashing kick either. Lets kick Shiver’s genetic analogy out the window, and use our current knowledge, so now we are talking about Goldust Corns. (Ultramel Caramels)

Every Corn Snake enthusiast and Corn Snake Lover like myself has been enchanted by the Goldust Corns and perhaps more by the Goldust Motleys. We are faced with a situation that has not come up quite like this before. We loved the Goldust Motleys when they were “Pure”, but how do we feel about them if they are not? This is the sledgehammer that I have referred to in the past.

Check out this thread, Mr. Serp and Kat Woman. You guys had the evidence under your noses in June of 2003.
http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6405&highlight=Mike+Falcon
Carlos turned me onto the above thread. Carlos is a very intelligent guy. He may not be able to communicate with me at his intelligence level due to our language barriers, but the guy knows Corns and how to breed them.

Rich this is directed at you specifically. This is an email that I got from Carlos tonight. Is it possible to see this photo that he is referring to?

“Hey Joe, I'm checking on that Ultra hypo mest, I remember when I start in this Hobby, back in 2000 is when Mike Falcon is showing the famous wild hypo female in his web page, at that time he ask for advices in Rich web page, If we ask Rich to retrive that threat do you think that can be done? That can be interesting, do you think?”

 

[Rich Z]

Rich this is directed at you specifically. This is an email that I got from Carlos tonight. Is it possible to see this photo that he is referring to?

“Hey Joe, I'm checking on that Ultra hypo mest, I remember when I start in this Hobby, back in 2000 is when Mike Falcon is showing the famous wild hypo female in his web page, at that time he ask for advices in Rich web page, If we ask Rich to retrive that threat do you think that can be done? That can be interesting, do you think?”

If you are talking about retrieving something from back on my old forums in 2000, sorry, but that just is not possible. That stuff has been long gone. The forum software I used at the time had a tendency to crash when it got to big, and I believe the last time it did that was when I went to the current style message board system. Since that was back in 2002, the old posts had been trimmed out of that old software MANY times to try to keep it from crashing, so even if I still had the site from right before the transition, there isn't a chance on an old post like that still being around.

Sorry, but that was many moons, and many servers ago.

 

[ecreipeoj]

Sorry, but that was many moons, and many servers ago.

I think you meant many "Shivers" ago. :roflmao:

We did not think that it was possible, but we were hoping to see a photo of the wild caught female that started this line. The photo was apparently posted on a thread back then.

Falcon told me that he had a photo of her somewhere in a computer, but he is not too happy with me now, so I do not think I will get it.

For curiosity sake, it would be sweet to see.

 

[ecreipeoj]

Another clutch I am anticipating seeing is a breeding of the GoldDust to my original Ultra Hypo female that I got directly from Mike Falcon. This was one of the latest clutches laid, so that will be a little while coming before I can analyze the results.

Rich, Has this clutched hatched yet? We would love to see a photo of what an Ultra Hypo hatchling looks like. This mating should only produce Ultra and Ultramels het for Caramel.

 

[mike panic]

Mike, I have already duplicated many of the photos of some of the babies from the GoldDust male in this thread alone. I believe a photo of the male is already in here somewhere.

Thanks Rich I'll look for it. If anyone knows what page the photo of Riches adult goldust is one, could you please give me a heads up? Thanks

 

[Edmund]

Pg. 14, Mike.

 

[mike panic]

thanks my friend

 

[mike panic]

Is she a Gold dust? I was under the impression this snake was from the same clutch as the male Rich got from Mike Shiver?

HER 1ST CLUTCH-Ken Siffert bred both of the ultra caramel motleys males(or whatever they are) to her. He ended up with an entire clutch of Ultra caramels or Golddusts I guess, all of which are het for motley.

HER 2ND CLUTCH- I did the exact same pairings and got a small 6 eggs clutch. 3 hatched, two were butters,one was the hatchling shown above next to mom. Is he a goldust? or is he an ultra caramel? Or is he an an amber? Thanks

 

[mike panic]

a slightly better photo of one of the males

the other looks comparable to him. One is just a little lighter. What is he? A Gold Dust Motley, an Ultra Caramel Motley? an Amber Motley? He is the dad or one of the dads of the hatchling shown in my last post with mom. I hope Im not annoying you guys by posting these photos, Im just trying to get a better handle on this thing and you guys have been very helpfull. Thanks

 

[ecreipeoj]

I talked to Mike P for quite awhile last night about the identification of the different phenotypes from the Goldust line. I can certainly see why so many people are confused about what they are seeing. There are just so many genetic possibilities within this line, and many of the matching phenotypes are going to look very similar.

The one think that I really noticed when talking to Mike P, is that many people are still holding onto Shivers names for some of the phenotypes from this line. You can go over to the photo threads and see the same thing. Shivers called this line “Ultra Ambers“, and I understand why he did this with his shinny penny idea of how the Ultra gene was working, but his thinking was flawed. It would help everybody to get a grasp on the phenotypes and genotypes if we all used the same names for them.

We have all seen Serps list of all of the possibly matches of Ultra and Amel at the Amel Locus. If you haven‘t you should take a look at it. The Goldust line has more genes in the mix than just Ultra, and Amel. It has Motley of course, Caramel, and it also has Standard hypo in the mix as well. Here is Serps key to the Amel locus. I think the names for this letter combination codes are perfect.

Genotype/phenotype key:
AA (Normal)
Aa (Normal het amel)
Au (Normal het ultra)
aa (Amelanistic)
au (Ultramel)
uu (UltraHypo)


The problem with calling the Goldust line “Ultra Amber” is that implies that the Corn is homo for Ultra, Standard Hypo and Caramel. This is not what this snakes are composed of genetically. (They may be homo for Hypo, but not necessarily) An Amber was a name that Rich Z coined for a Corn that is Homo for Standard Hypo and Caramel. We need to stop using “Ultra Amber” when we are talking about the Goldust line because it is incorrect and is causing a great deal of confusion.

If we add another Key to Serps key above for the Caramel and Standard Hypo genes we may be able to see just how many possibly matches we have in the Goldust line.

I am not exactly sure which letters that we are going to use or have been used for these morphs, but I can correct them later if it is not consistent.

Genotype/phenotype key:
cc (Caramel)
hh (Standard Hypo)

This is what genotypes and phenotypes that I believe are possible from this line in addition to the above types when we add in the caramel and hypo genes as Homo:

Genotype/phenotype key:
aacc (Butter)
aucc (Goldust)
uucc (Ultra Caramel)
hhcc (Amber)
aacchh (Hypo Butter) will look like a Butter or very similar.
aucchh (Hypo Goldust) will look like a Goldust or very similar.
uucchh (Hypo Ultra Caramel) I think it will be a lighter version of the Ultra Caramel.

As you can see there will be three phenotypes that will look very similar to each other. The Ambers that we have had for awhile, the Ultra Caramel and Hypo Ultra Caramels, will most likely be extremely difficult to determine the genotypes of visually. Especially at this point in time when we do not know exactly which genes each parent are carrying. In addition to these phenotypes, a Light Caramel that is just het or double het for Hypo or Ultra, may be difficult to recognized as well. The Ultra line has its own double dose of yellow, if you will, and may cause even more confusion. All of these phenotypes can also come in Motley which has it own lightening effect which is making Mike P go crazy!LOL :cheers:

Another Shivers name or phenotype mistake that many people are still holding onto is that Shivers called an Ultramel an Ultra Hypo. I understand his mistake because he did not know the Ultra gene was located at the amel locus. An Ultramel looks like a dark amel with ruby eyes. They can be mistaken for an amel if someone is not up on this thread like we all are. LOL :dancer: An Ultra Hypo looks very similar to the Standard Hypo, and can be mistaken for a Standard hypo by probably anybody, including us thread readers. :shrugs:

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