I often wondered if the Miami Phase that exhibited the gray background color was a naturally occurring population of axanthism in the corn snakes. When I was working with the Candy Cane corns, getting and keeping the orange coloration out of that line was very difficult to accomplish, even though I started with some very nice pure gray background Miami Phase as my base stock. So I felt that by introducing Amelanism, that one or more other genetic traits accompanied that Amelanism gene. And once it was in the stock, it was difficult to get it back out again.
So is the yellow coloration related to the orange background color in some way? Beats me. I remember one project I started when I had a mind's eye view of a yellow background colored corn snake with stark black blotches on it. It seemed natural to breed 'A' Anerythrism into Caramel to see where that might progress in that direction. Oddly enough, what I wound up producing was completely axanthic anerythristics that were pure gray in background with those black blotches I was looking for. But I never could get the yellow coloration back in after that, and it was soon a project that I had to abandon for other things.
So between the results I got in the Candy Cane line where it was difficult to get rid of the yellow/orange background color, and the apparently complete opposite results I was getting in that yellow with black blotch line I hoped for, it was enough to drive me insane.
It is good to be retired..........
