king snake influence in tessera morph?

BloodyBaroness said:

What Dave is trying to prove is that a visually striped cal king cross will NOT produce visually striped offspring in the FIRST generation when bred with a corn snake.

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Thank you! I'd gotten lost in all the....speculation.

DMong said:

So what's the plan for all the offspring produced from this?.....nevermind the theory. Like, where will they go......freezer?, show tables to be bought and bred later on?.........and as what? Even if they are initially labeled 100% accurately...once they are in posession of countless others, all that goes completely out the window. What if the Cal. kings used originally were Newport-Long Beach coastal aberrants and not San Diego stripes?


~Doug

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Doug, great post, as usual.
Back in January when you and me exchanged a dozen or so PM's, I asked you about the Cal King localities, and learned at that time, (can't remember the exact locality names here, I am sure you'll know them, what with your new book on the shelves &c)-- anyways you mentioned a couple different localities, one where some individuals are striped, others not--
and-
a locality from where all of the Cal Kings are striped.
At that time I was wondering if using a different form of CalKing, from the ALL striped locality, would be a better choice for studying the inheritance. What I find really odd about this public post of yours is that while you have disdain for hybrids, merely suggesting that another locality of Cal King might prove out higher heritablity of stripe, makes an interesting speculation to those of us who might not have considered making that cross. But since you have now publicly mentioned it outloud...
Anyways you'd dismissed that the heritablity stripe would make no difference as to the locality back in January, but now that you've brought it up again are you saying it might make a difference now?

dave partington said:

Doug, great post, as usual.
Back in January when you and me exchanged a dozen or so PM's, I asked you about the Cal King localities, and learned at that time, (can't remember the exact locality names here, I am sure you'll know them, what with your new book on the shelves &c)-- anyways you mentioned a couple different localities, one where some individuals are striped, others not--
and-
a locality from where all of the Cal Kings are striped.
At that time I was wondering if using a different form of CalKing, from the ALL striped locality, would be a better choice for studying the inheritance. What I find really odd about this public post of yours is that while you have disdain for hybrids, merely suggesting that another locality of Cal King might prove out higher heritablity of stripe, makes an interesting speculation to those of us who might not have considered making that cross. But since you have now publicly mentioned it outloud...
Anyways you'd dismissed that the heritablity stripe would make no difference as to the locality back in January, but now that you've brought it up again are you saying it might make a difference now?

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Hi Dave. The Honduran book isn't in final print just yet, as we are still adding and editing many things,..........but will be available fairly soon. The Cal. king book will be a bit later on, but some of the content has begun a while back.

Sure, there are different locales of stripes, banded, and countless other mixed phenotypes in the wild and in captivity. What I recall saying is that MANY in the hobby are of mixed localities, lineages, and all sorts of variable phenotypes, so predicting EXACTLY what will be produced in many of these captive Cal. king clutches can be very unpredictable. This goes for certain locales too. As to precise inheritance, San Diego striped phenotypes are dominant over bandeded forms, but I don't know all about exactly what will be produced when bred to whatever types someone happens to have. As I said a good while back, this can depend GREATLY on the parent stock lineage and what all their specific background was/is. I haven't bred enough Cal. kings personally to begin to know everything about their inheritance. Others like Kerby Ross, Ross Padilla, Brian Hubbs, Paul Lynum, etc..and many others know more about . Ross Padilla's Cal. king site is the one I suggested to you to check out back then. He and the others field herp all over California and are far more familiar with the different phenotypes from the different counties and what not than I am.

I am interested if 50% normal clutches and 50% tessera phenotype animals are absolutely predictable just like everyone else is, but on the other hand as you know I don't care for producing hybrids either..LOL!.....so it is pretty tough to have the cake and eat it too where I sit. Now as Shiari mentoned, I don't know if that breeding will prove or disprove anything, because you didn't start off with a 100% locality authentic Cal. king of any type........I just don't know either way to be honest. I don't even know if it makes a difference if a San Diego stripe is used or a Newport-Long Beach aberrant is used.......the Newports are what Tessseras most look like phenotypically, but I don't know which type might have been used, or if the clean San Diego when mixed with cornsnake genetics give them this look......This is all stuff that I do not know at all. I was only asking about where the known hybrid offspring would go....nothing more really.


~Doug

Back when I used to work with Cal kings, I discovered that incubation temps played a significant part in what the babies would look like when mixing banded and striped parents. With constant controlled temps in an incubator, the babies would usually exhibit a mixture of the two patterns. However when the eggs were incubated at room temps, with day/night fluctuations, the babies would hatch out with either banded or striped patterns with NO mixing of the two.

YMMV, as it could easily just have been some sort of statistical fluke. Murphy did that to me quite often over the years.

What was the outcome of the test?

Since this thread was revived, just figured I'd put in my two cents as a geneticist, since there is some flawed genetics in this thread. Not that he needs my validation, but I think Mitchell Mulks has a strong genetic argument that was carefully laid out in a thoughtful dispassionate way.

I agree with Mitch that it is trivial to breed out all the kingsnake phenotypic markers in a few generations such that you get something that looks like a corn in every way (aside from the tesselated phenotype). You could then breed those snakes to a tessera (ideally a super tessera) to get enough offspring to show with statistics that whatever creates the tessera phenotype in the "kingcorn tessera" line is at the same locus as the corn snake tessera allele. Ideally you'd be able to produce super tesseras (half of the offspring of this cross would be homozygous tessera if one parent is a super tessera and if the alleles are at the same locus) from that pairing that would produce all tessera corns when mated to a wt corn, which could only occur if the two alleles are at the same locus. This still wouldn't rule out that tessera was a spontaneous mutation in captive-bred corns, though, since this type of pattern seems to have evolved independently multiple times in colubrids, it could have happened in corns and you might expect the locus involved to be the same one as in kings. But if they turned out not to be allelic that would be pretty conclusive evidence against the king snake hybrid hypothesis.

The only way to know for sure would be to map the locus where the tessera allele resides. Sequencing is not enough, as due to normal variation there will be many sequences that differ between the tesseras and non tesseras. You have to find the one that actually represents the tessera locus (which is not trivial at all) rather than some other polymorphism. Typically this is done by finding "molecular markers" that segregate only with the tessera phenotype and using them to zero in on where the actual locus is. Then you could sequence the tessera locus and show that, in tessera corns, the tessera allele is more homologous to the king snake locus than the corn one. Who wants to fork out tens of thousands of dollars? I guess all I'm saying is that if Mitch is right I wouldn't be surprised, nor would I be surprised if it were a spontaneous mutation.

I'm curious as well it's been two years going on now is there any progress with the project and it's outcome?

As far as I know, no one has yet to prove the hybrid theory.
I'm sticking with my belief that they are not.

Rich Z said:

Back when I used to work with Cal kings, I discovered that incubation temps played a significant part in what the babies would look like when mixing banded and striped parents. With constant controlled temps in an incubator, the babies would usually exhibit a mixture of the two patterns. However when the eggs were incubated at room temps, with day/night fluctuations, the babies would hatch out with either banded or striped patterns with NO mixing of the two.

YMMV, as it could easily just have been some sort of statistical fluke. Murphy did that to me quite often over the years.

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Note to self : think on this above quote.

And DuxorW's above post, as well.

MysticExotics said:

As far as I know, no one has yet to prove the hybrid theory.
I'm sticking with my belief that they are not.

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I'm just going to withhold judgment, since there is unlikely to be an observation that falsifies the hybrid theory, and because by this point if tessera were from another species it would be like ultra, where we wouldn't care anymore.

It will be interesting to see how this panned out.

Also just look at the silver fox project... That goes in line with Duxor, since I am not a good quotist I am just going to link you guys:
"The result is that Russian scientists now have a number of domesticated foxes that are fundamentally different in temperament and behavior from their wild forebears. Some important changes in physiology and morphology are now visible, such as mottled or spotted colored fur. Many scientists believe that these changes related to selection for tameness are caused by lower adrenaline production in the new breed, causing physiological changes in very few generations and thus yielding genetic combinations not present in the original species. This indicates that selection for tameness (i.e. low flight distance) produces changes that are also influential on the emergence of other "dog-like" traits, such as raised tail and coming into heat every six months rather than annually. These seemingly unrelated changes are a result of pleiotropy."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

I was really just adding my two cents to what Mitchell Mulks already pointed out, based on his direct academic experience in this area. But yeah, artificial selection can accomplish crazy things.

Every time I've debated this issue (king hybrid VS spontaneous corn mutation), when I asked what mode of inheritance the Newport Kings possess (presuming they are the result of a mutation) the opposition almost always responded with discussion of the Striped Cal. King mutation instead. I've hunted the deserts of California (before, after, and during my residence in California) and don't recall ever seeing one with the tessellated pattern of the Tessera (I'm not saying they aren't seen in that mutation)? The Tessera corns look nothing like Striped Cal Kings until you add the Striped Corn mutation, so comparing apples to apples, I'd love for someone to chime in with evidence of the Newport's inheritance (in the interest of education). Are they polygenetic products or gene mutants? If someone said that the Striped Cal kings regularly exhibit the classically tessellated phenotype of the Tessera Corns, I'd be inclined to be more objective about that side of the debate, but as you point out, Duxor, in the absence of DNA evidence, it's a potentially deadlocked stalemate? Mitch would surely have the answer on the Newports (and Striped mutants), so I hope he can comment. I'm told he's doing breeding trials to attenpt to sort this out. Of course, my point begs the question, "IF Newports ARE mutants and if that mutant is recessive to wild-type, how does that play into the hybrid theory, with Tessera corn mutants being inherited via a form of dominance? BTW, Duxor, your comments are priceless in these matters. Thanks for schooling all of us on the genetics. And, BTW again, AFAIK there has only been one Tessera Homozygote in all these years. What's up with that? I've produced over 1,000 Tesseras, and have never produced a homozygote. Naturally, I don't keep all the babies to find out, but from my own experience, my customers' testimonies, and the collective corn snake chat community, there is only one homozygote (super form) in existence - that I'm aware? How do we categorize the Tessera mode of inheritance with this reality? I think it's safe to say that if I have produced over 1,000 Tesseras, surely there have been 15K-20K produced world-wide. While possible that 1:20K does not definitively say there aren't more Homos to come, but Vegas odds are against this indicating there will be more? Also, as you point out, Duxor, for people to say it's LESS likely that the Tessellated mutation is spontaneous in "pure" corns, is silly. It would be ignoring where wild Newports got it (IF they are mutants), where the wild Elaphe situla got it, and where the "garter-like" phenotype derived in other species? To say it's unlikely or impossible for Tesseras to be pure corns may also insist the question, "what species was crossed with Cal Kings to render their "perhaps" borrowed mutation? I realize Tessera corns sprang from captive-breeding--slanting suspicion--but it still speaks to some people not understanding that all North American colubrids have a common ancestor? Why can't all Cal King mutations be NATURALLY hiding in corns and vice-versa?

Do tessera x tessera breedings result in more infertile eggs than usual?

DuxorW said:

Do tessera x tessera breedings result in more infertile eggs than usual?

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http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129775

I bred the original female to the original male which Don sent me. The same pairing was done by KJ when he first got them. My outcome was 11 fertile eggs, which hatched out 8 Tesseras, 3 visual motleys. No slugs. This year I've bred the original male with a female which I got on trade, just a classic/normal Tessera- no idea what her hets even are. As far as I know she's one of the first 96 which Don made available the first year they were out there for others to have. Gravid she is, we'll see what that outcome is.

Just for kicks and giggles I placed the 3/4 corn 1/4 cal king striped female earlier in this thread, in the tub with the original male Tessera. Just to see what might happen. Too many questions started churning around in my mind with all of these posts all over the web about the possibility of hybrids. Suffice it to say, the male has never let me down when he encounters a female cremesicle or a female ultra/ultramel. in fact he's quite the breeding machine when it comes to any female corn.
Well, he absolutely panicked the moment he sensed her, was looking for an exit route FAST. She went into kingsnake mode and wanted to EAT HIM. So I broke them up. So this answered my question for myself. I have since passed the female known hybrid out of my collection to another breeder. Who is making some Thayer x Milk X Kingkorns with her this year.

Anyone who wants to continue on with this line of God-given reasoning that they [Tessera] is of hybrid origin as they can tell simply by looking at the pictures online is quite welcome to their belief. I have seen no evidence of any truth to it.

No wild striped cornsnake has ever been found. :shrugs:

DuxorW said:

Do tessera x tessera breedings result in more infertile eggs than usual?

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Here is Graham's Tessera to Tessera pairing thread

What are we to think of the very "un-normal" non-tessera siblings?

Or the anonymity of the originator who produced the first tesseras?

Or the ever-evolving phenotype of tesseras?

To me, it seems to be more of a cumulative case. Maybe no one piece is convincing itself, but taken as a whole the hybrid argument is a better explanation.

But as someone else has pointed out, by now it no longer matters one way or the other. Just like ultra, tesseras and any of their other *possible* genetic ingredients are well established and thoroughly mixed into the captive cornsnake gene pool.

I guess I'm just trying to understand why there is allegedly only one homozygous tessera, if, on average, 1/3 of the tessera offspring should be homozygous in a tess x tess cross. But if it doesn't cause embryonic lethality...

Tessera X Tessera Fertility . . .

DuxorW said:

I guess I'm just trying to understand why there is allegedly only one homozygous tessera, if, on average, 1/3 of the tessera offspring should be homozygous in a tess x tess cross. But if it doesn't cause embryonic lethality...

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I thought of that also, but I'm not seeing increased infertility (non-viable embryos) from Tessera to Tessera pairings. Homozygotes having a lethal gene mutation is THE most logical explanation, but I confess that I didn't track the ratio of infertile eggs to fertile. I'll start doing that now (I've done one or two Tessera-to-Tessera pairings this year) just in case memory is not serving me well? If embryonic lethality is not a potential, what could cause there to be only one homozygote? One out of perhaps 20,000? Of course, people who don't breed their corns could have homozygotes, but essentially, "to own a corn is to breed a corn" applies to the bulk of Tessera owners? Then, this begs review of phenotypes? Lethality COULD explain why we're not seeing quantifiable phenotype rations in progeny? The reality of getting target product (Tessera) in the first breeding generation is quite an allure to breeders, so I THINK most Tessera owners are breeding theirs?

Could this ratio reality be akin to male tri-colored cats being so rare and frail?