What defines a motley?

[Slipmattic]

Hi everyone,

I have a opal male that i purchased awhile ago off a friend, he did not breed it. But anyhow i purchased this little guy as just a opal with a hella cool color (orange saddles). Now that he is getting older i have noticed he has motley on his kneck and his lower body saddles seem to look like motley, but they are not perfectley round circles like at the top of his kneck. I will try to get pics in about a week that ill add to this ad. I just got excited because i have a motley opal female( which possibley is a snowopal). Any advice is appreciated, and im new to genetics so :madeuce: me.

 

[snakewispera snr]

Is the belly clear???

 

[Slipmattic]

yea his belly is clear

 

[tbtusk]

If his belly is completely clear it is likely you have a motley! I had two snakes in this year's clutch which appeared to be motley but on closer inspection after a shed, turned out to have a few faint belly checkers, so if the snake is very young it might be hard to see.

Also, if he has visible side spots, see if they are more of a square shape or more of an elongated oval or stripe. A side pattern thats been 'stretched out' like that is often part of a motley pattern.

 

[Slipmattic]

He's not to incredibaley young, by size ratio i'd say about a yearling. Im going to have to wait till next sunday or monday to look at him, but im sure he has a clear belly. I unfortunatley i have to keep my snakes at a friends house, as the inlaws hate snakes. I thank you for all your help, and i have much graditude.

 

[Susan]

Just remember, being an opal, the belly checks may be difficult to see. Many normally patterned corn snakes have what appears to be the motley pattern on their neck, but they are not motleys. If you are unsure if you can see belly checks, a photo posted here might help. A suggestion for taking photos of an opal, go outside in the shade and take some with and without a flash. That will probably get you the better photos.

 

[Slipmattic]

Yea i will try to get those pics up on here this coming sunday or monday. I know that alot of snakes have the opal markings on their knecks, but arent actually motley. I just thought he possibley might be due to his markings on the rest of his body. Where he is or isnt, is not that big of an issue i love the way he looks. He's white, his saddles are bright orange. I have looked at many opals on the net, and not one looks like him.

 

[northwestcorns]

I'm new to this morph thing. I THOUGHT I knew what motley was. In one of my books, I have to go and find it, Motley is defined as when the saddles bleed together and that technically any stripe is actually an extreme motley.

Quote from Ms. Love's Adult Corn Snake Photo Gallery page, " MOTLEY CORN SNAKES In this simple recessive trait, the dorsal blotches tend to fuse into a ladder-like pattern, and occasionally, an irregular or broken stripe. Ventral checkering and most lateral blotches also disappear. A highly variable pattern trait that creates interesting things when “cross-pollinated” with striped corns, or mixed into other color variants."

So, it sounds like they CAN have ventral checkers and that they MAY disappear. Is this not right?




Did the definition change?

 

[glenhead]

Our Blizzard hatchling is young enough you can still easily see many of her innards ("guts" for y'all who don't hail from hereabouts), but in good light you can tell for sure she has the "fused into a ladder-like pattern" and a completely blank belly, so we've declared that she's a motley. I know we won't know for drop-dead certain until we breed her with a known motley, but we don't have any doubt to speak of. I'm going to get some good high-noon outdoor dorsal and ventral shots of her in the next little while, and will post them. The almost-not-there patterning is one of the things I like best about her, and it'll be quite interesting to see how that changes as she matures.

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

Motleys do not have ventral checkers. Kathy's definition doesn't so may disappear in regards to ventral checkers. It says ventral checkers disappear as well as most lateral blotches.

Motley, Opal & Opal Motley

The likeliness in having a Blizzard Motley is slim to none. Only a handful of Charcoal Motleys exist, let alone Blizzard Motley. Blizzards are very hard to see ventral checkers on. I can't even say I've personally seen ventral checkers on a Blizzard!

 

[glenhead]

Yeah, I had the impression that a Blizzard motley was low probability. As I said, I'm going to try to get some good irridescence shots under daylight to get as good a read as we can.

We do have a Charcoal motley male that we got expressly to breed with the Blizzard, so I guess that'll tell the final tale in a couple of years. If none of the kiddos turn out motley, then that'll be proof.

<geek> It's too danged bad nobody is rich enough to get a PCR machine to do real genotypes on these critters...</geek>

 

[Hallie]

There aren't too many, but I hatched out a blizzard motley this year. So did Jeff Mohr (in fact, the parents of my blizzard mot were purchased from Jeff last year, so they're probably related).

Northwestcorns, stripe is not just an 'extreme' motley. The stripe gene is allelic to the motley gene. There is a difference in appearance between a true stripe and a motley that is fully striped.

 

[tbtusk]

<geek> It's too danged bad nobody is rich enough to get a PCR machine to do real genotypes on these critters...</geek>

Working on it!! Well it'll be a little while, but I've wanted to do some serious genetic sequencing with corn snakes for a while. I'm writing from a bio lab at MIT where I'm working for the summer. Hopefully I will be able to get a professor at whichever college I go to interested in the research.

 

[Slipmattic]

I just did a check on both the male and female opal, niether one has belly checkers. Im also getting a hypo lav. male to throw into the mix. Also i had a question about HET opals. I thought that when dealing with het's that the gene that is not showing it would be het for, i guess thats a way to put it. Say lavander bred to a opal, that would make lavander's het for amel, right? I have read people saying het opal? im sure im wrong with this and wanted to make it clear.

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

I just did a check on both the male and female opal, niether one has belly checkers. Im also getting a hypo lav. male to throw into the mix. Also i had a question about HET opals. I thought that when dealing with het's that the gene that is not showing it would be het for, i guess thats a way to put it. Say lavander bred to a opal, that would make lavander's het for amel, right? I have read people saying het opal? im sure im wrong with this and wanted to make it clear.

Yes, you are correct.

Saying Lavender het Opal is technically wrong, but some people do it because not everyone knows that an Opal is homozygous Lavender and Amelanistic. Rather then explaining it, they just make things shorter. I like to write it Lavender het Amelanistic (Opal) so that not only is it correct, but a buyer knows that the animal has the potential to produce Opals.

 

[Slipmattic]

Im not to great with genetics, so Opal is a type of lavender that is homozygous. Kind of like a Ultramelanistic? Im sorry for all the questions but the guy that i normally talk to about genetic stuff really doesnt talk to me unless im going to be buying something from him. And even then apparentley he's wrong. Thanks for all your help thus far.

 

[ZoologyGirl]

Im not to great with genetics, so Opal is a type of lavender that is homozygous. Kind of like a Ultramelanistic? Im sorry for all the questions but the guy that i normally talk to about genetic stuff really doesnt talk to me unless im going to be buying something from him. And even then apparentley he's wrong. Thanks for all your help thus far.

An Opal is homozygous for both lavender and amel

The reason 'lavender het opal' is technically inaccurate is because het opal would imply it is heterozygous for both lavender and amel....however since the animal is already a lavender we already know that it is homozygous for lavender, and heterozygous for amel. However, people use 'lavender het opal' for simplicity sake, basically to say what it can produce.

I also prefer to use 'lavender het amel' as it makes more sense in my mind...but some people prefer it the other way. So I suppose triplemoonsexotics way of writing it "lavender het amel (opal)" makes pretty good sense because it satisfied both.

An Ultramel is technically always heterozygous. Because the ultra gene lies on the same locus as the amel (I think I got that right?) So ultra would be homozygous ultra (uu)...ultramel would be heterozygous ultra and amel (ua)....and amel would be homozygous amel (aa)

 

[Slipmattic]

Thanks for all the info. im purchasing a hypo lavender male to put into the mix. So i'll be breeding 1.1 motley opal, and the hypo lavender to the female lavender. Ill be crossing the males to females to increase chances. Hopefully ill get some cool babies.