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The Cultivars (morphs)/Genetics Issues Discussions about genetics issues and/or the various cultivars for cornsnakes commercially available.

View Poll Results: After how many generations of "pure" breeding would say a snake is pure corn?
As long as a snake looks like a corn and acts like a corn, it's pure to me 4 8.16%
After 2 generations 0 0%
After 5 generations 5 10.20%
After 10 generations 7 14.29%
After 15 generations 1 2.04%
After 20 generations 0 0%
After 25 generations or more (if more, specify which number in the thread) 2 4.08%
If a snake has any hybrid ancestor, no matter how many generations ago, it's still a hybrid. 30 61.22%
Voters: 49. You may not vote on this poll

Proposal regarding hybrids / pure corns
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Old 01-14-2013, 01:51 PM   #11
DragonsDenSerpents
Keep in mind DNA tests are not always accurate. They can only provide a generalization, at least with dog breeds.
 
Old 01-14-2013, 01:57 PM   #12
Carpe Serpentis
Paternity testing is 99.99% accurate to my knowlege. Now, when you go further than parents... i.e. trying to prove longer distance relationships that % drops drastically. I'm simply proposing that once a given snake is deemed pure by the powers that be... that dna testing is done on those breeders to ensure paternity.
 
Old 01-14-2013, 02:05 PM   #13
jkgeorge
I'm just curious what the purity of corn snakes means to those involved with this discussion. I like pure line animals, and I know why, how about everybody else? How do you choose which morphs to keep? If it were the most amazing looking morph ever produced and you knew it had king snake lineage 50 generations back would you want one? Would you keep and breed them? Would you like them any less?
First, let me say that I'm a milk snake and king snake fan, especially locality specific animals. I know several that have posted here are too. Some south of the border kings and milks are becoming very muddled and since no new animals can be transported into the country it is imperative to some breeders to maintain pure lines. Typically with those type animals there are no or very few morphs. The lines seem to get even fuzzier as well with milks as the crosses are on the sub-species level.
I know Okeetees and Miamis started out as locality morphs. It just seems that so many of the morphs are so far removed from anything seen in the wild that the concern of hybridization generations ago seems like a strange worry. I also realize that the basis of the morphs started from wild caught animals. But generations of line breeding and selection have really changed them. It seems that there would definitely be difficulties in maintaining pure lines and keeping track of lineages with so many breeders producing so many snakes.
I DO think that if a breeder/keeper knows that there is a chance that the offspring aren't pure that they should disclose that information.
I have seen several occasions on other forums where people have purchased milk snakes thinking they had a certain sub-species when in fact they didn't or had a mix of some kind. It would be very frustrating to find out our new snake is not what you wanted or thought you were getting. When you are trying to maintain a line of animals that can't be obtained anymore then it really becomes serious.

That said, I am all for pure lines of animals and locality animals. I know there are breeders out there that keep and breed locality corns. I would be happy to see more of that in the hobby. They may not be as bright, or pink, or het for anything, but to me it's hard to beat wild-type animals.

Just wanted to share my opinion,
and see what everyone else thought.
 
Old 01-14-2013, 05:52 PM   #14
Isoldael
Quote:
Originally Posted by jkgeorge View Post
I DO think that if a breeder/keeper knows that there is a chance that the offspring aren't pure that they should disclose that information.
The problem is that there is ALWAYS a chance that the offspring isn't pure, even from wild-caught animals. That's kind of the problem at the moment... we have no definition for pure. Is a wild caught corn still pure if it bred with a grey rat snake a few generations ago?
 
Old 01-14-2013, 06:08 PM   #15
jkgeorge
Quote:
Originally Posted by Isoldael View Post
The problem is that there is ALWAYS a chance that the offspring isn't pure, even from wild-caught animals.
If this is true, then there is no need to worry about it, LOL.

I'm not sure how often corns mate with other rat snakes, but it would seem to me that if it were common, the species would no longer be distinct, or there would be obvious intergrades in the overlap areas. This would indicate that the species of rat snakes are actually sub-species, as seen in milk snakes.
 
Old 01-14-2013, 06:12 PM   #16
SnakeAround
That is something specifically the more extreme anti hybrid people try to ignore or they found a logic to deal with it. The latter do acknowledge snakes do hybridize in natural situations, but do not worry about any naturally brought in genes, yet if replicated in artifical living situations, e.g. the breeding situations of any breeder involved, they consider it a threat to say the least. So, wild caught is seen as pure if it looks pure, no discussion possible but captive bred snakes are suspicious until proven pure. I can't wrap my head around this....
 
Old 01-14-2013, 06:31 PM   #17
jkgeorge
Well, to be honest, I fall into the anti-hybrid group. My view is this.... if it happens in nature then it is part of that animals natural genetic makeup. Evolution and speciation are continuous. If corns naturally hybridize then I would assume they have been doing that for a very long time, meaning that it is a component that essentially makes corn snakes what they are.
I hope we don't get so paranoid that we can no longer trust nature.
 
Old 01-14-2013, 06:31 PM   #18
Carpe Serpentis
The truth of the matter for me is that there is no such thing as 100% pure. Its like saying I'm 100% American or I'm from the local of Mass. Then, one discovers I'm actually an intergrade between a northern specimen and a southern specimen. One goes back further and further and now we discover that some ancestors were from England and others even further back from Spain. I see the exact same thing when we talk about snakes that are related enough to breed or that have not evolved away from a common ancestor enough to not breed as the case may be.
 
Old 01-14-2013, 06:39 PM   #19
Isoldael
So how about we start marking our snakes as "pure bred for 10 generations" or so? You're not claiming that the lineage is completely pure then (as we can't possibly prove that), but you're just going as far back as you can prove.
 
Old 01-14-2013, 06:40 PM   #20
Isoldael
Oh, forgot to add - I know there's no such thing as actually proving it as you could fake entries in any database too, but we can try to check it as much as we can anyway.
 

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