new to bloodred..

This is really just a random curiosity question, so I figured I'd put it here. I've seen a lot of pictures of various bloodreds and have seen hundreds of variations: some are more orange, some are more brown, some had grey and red in them and some are just solid red, or solid red with orange markings. I was just wondering: does the name bloodred refer to coloration exactly? I know there are always variations of colorations but I think this is the one that is the most varied that I've seen. Is there a "special" classification for a solid bloodred, or is it just the luck of the draw, as with a lot of cornsnake morph variations?

complicated. . .

You're going to get lots of different answers on this one. Personally, I think the name is given to the entire package. Color and pattern. That's the way it's always been, but I'm being told folks are trying to split that up.

They say the patriarchs of this line were very red. Since I've never seen one that was the color of blood, I presume they were 'redder' than most corns. I think the name was more of a goal than a description.

Until recently, all bloodreds had many traits in common.
1) They have a non traditionally patterned belly that lacked all black.
2) Their mature coloration had little or no black anywhere.
3) Their mature markings "blended" with their ground colors so as to almost make them patternless.
4) Most were redder than most corns.
5) Also almost all the first ones I saw many years ago had linear dark stripes. Not unlike a striped corn, but not very dark. I still have a few with those stripes, but you don't see that much any more.

I think the target bloodred corn is one that has:
1) Little or no black as adults.
2) Almost no obvious markings as adults.
3) Non traditional belly markings. Usually red OR white OR red and white. Black specks allowed, but not black checkers.

As you say, today we see orange, red, brown in the so-called 'normal' coloration and of course combinations with recessive colors like charcoal, amelanistic, caramel, anerythristic and complexes thereof. Of course, we're mixing them with the popular patterns too.

Your question is prudent since the name they were given denotes a color. A color of which is probably the least common. That of blood. To me, your best standard is the belly markings or lack of them. Since many can have dorsal and lateral patterns like any other corn, the belly markings will "indicate" whether it's a bloodred or not. As it is with most things, there are some bloodreds that can even fool us with their belly markings. I have and know of others with pure bloodreds with a little black on the bellies, but not the traditional checkers. If one has more than small black flecks, I'd say it's probably not a bloodred.

Don
www.cornsnake.NET

Hello Don,

I think you mean this snake for example.

here are the parent´s

Three perfect examples. . .

Thanks, Daniel.

Hey, when you are and Michael crossing the ocean? Bring some of your killer bloodreds and I'll buy 'em.

Don
www.cornsnake.NET

I know that I am the lone voice crying in the wilderness on this, but I really have a problem with a color name being referred to an animal that everyone identifies by its pattern (or lack thereof) of its belly!

Personally, I think the patten ought to be named (I have suggested "Faded corns" because of the way the pattern seems to fade as it moves from the dorsal to the ventral, but that has never caught on at all) as a specific morph just like motley and stripe have been. It is for this pattern mutation that I believe a snake can be "het" (although, the pattern may actually be co-dominant, given the way "hets" look in regard to their patterns), and it is for the pattern that I believe simple genetics can apply.

However, the coloration appears to be a linebreeding issue. Don's bloodreds are different from either Rich's or Kathy's, and all three of theirs are different from others. You can see all the babies in a clutch exhibit the pattern mutation clearly, but the coloration is such that we label them A, B, and C examples of the "morph."

Further, I find nothing more stupid that the name "Anerythristic Bloodred," which literlly means the "Red-less bloodred!" I would suggest, therefore, the following:

1. Call the pattern mutation by a name ... chose one, I don't care what it is, but just make it a pattern name instead one referring to COLOR!!!

2. All animals that are homozygous for the pattern mutation are "X" just as all motlies are "motley."

3. Animals that are "X" combined with other genes (linebred or otherwise) can very easily have different names to distinguish them from one another: "X" mutants with deep, dark red coloration are "Bloodreds" and "X" mutant animals that are also homozygous for Charcoal are "Pewters" ... This is no different than noting the differentiations between candy canes, flourescant oranges, or butters, ... they're all "Amels PLUS" after all.

All of this is fine, but I understand full well that none of this will catch on by little old me asking for it. So, I have challenged several large breeders to come up with some sort of a viable name that meets the above requirements. There is just no reason for all of this confusion, in my opinion, but it will take some leadership from one of the "big breeders" to get things changed. Kathy Love said that she would try to address some these issues in her new book, but I would sure like to see some sort of census on this, reagrdless of that "X" name actually ends up being.

I like the idea. . .

I've always had a problem with that name too. I think it's a great idea. You've started the ball rolling and I second your motion for changing the morph name to something more applicable. As you say, bloodred denotes a color and many heretofore "bloodreds" are brown or other colors. Step one was identifying a problem. Step two is suggesting a change. Step three is an untimed "brainstorming" session for potential names.

This is probably the perfect forum for taking serious and applicable suggestions. In the absence of a formal committee (which we don't need), popular consensus should be honored I'm sure some of you out there have some good ideas. Let's hear them.

Thanks Darin.

Don
www.cornsnake.NET

The idea is good, but not new. we had this a few month ago:

Yep ... there is truly "nothing new under the sun!"

no ideas...so I start.

smeared

and we had from the other postings:
blended
diffuse
faded
stonewashed


hop hop ... we need ideas!!!

Serpwidgets has started referring to them as Diffuse corns, so I second the name (or third the name, since it was mentioned already in this thread).

-Kat

I personally wouldn't want to see a change in the names Bloodred or Pewter. They are, or have become, very descriptive of those particular snakes. I would agree though that the pattern mutation itself needs a new name since there will be more and more discrepencies in the nomenclature. Anery A Bloodred, Lavendar Bloodred, Caramel Bloodred, etc. etc. etc.

Did a really quick thesaurus check on fused and blended in Word, and could only come up with the following names: (not in any specific order and not that they are particularily good)

Washed
Diminished
Merged
Coalesced
Muddled

I kinda like fused, washed, and merged. Muddled isn't bad, but kinda negative.

D80

I agree with Darin

"Faded" is nice, but IMO will be too confusing with corns that currently exist and have a (non-genetic, or non-simple anyway) "stonewashed" look to them, like faded jeans. I'm going with "Diffuse" for the pattern.

Pewter still fits for the charcoal combo, so I don't see why that would change. "Blood" can suggest a lot of shades of red, depending on whether it's just coming out and hitting the air and very bright, or whether it's drying or dried and a lot darker. IMO "bloodred" is still fitting for the selectively bred "really red" corns homozygous for the pattern.

I think this is a good example of a corn with the "diffuse" pattern that isn't a "bloodred" corn:

hmmmm, but we didn´t talk about giving a pewter a new name. there is really no need to. also a good blood red should still called be blood red - there is no doubt!
but we need a name for butter blood red´s and so on ...or for ugly "blood red´s" we both are famous for ;-)

so we need input, like Drizzt80 did it!
and if we have enoug ideas we should make a poll and after that the the problem is solved if the big three breeders would chance some things in their 04 price list´s.
of course they shouldn´t rename pewter and blood red but if they would rename all anery, amel and hypo blood red´s ....that could work

"Diffuse" works for me, for the pattern aspect of the morph. It could be applied in the same way as motley or stripe.

2500 members and that´s all ???
oh no, and later the others came and say hey: if you would be a corn - would you like to be called "xxx" ???
So why you chose that stupid name???

At least we should try to find a better sounding name.
I don´t know but diffuse butter corn sound to me like using "GUDRUN" and "DETLEF" on humans ;-)
maybe we simply should open up a new thread ...
"NEW TO BLOOD RED..." it something a lot of people ignore?

Maybe you misunderstand the word, or it means something else in German? Diffused means it is spread out or smeared/blurred, which is what generally happens to the pattern. Here are some of the uses of the word:

http://www.seds.org/messier/diffuse.html

http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/gbssci/phys/Class/refln/u13l1d.html

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/diffuse_background.html

http://www.sharewareorder.com/Diffuse-download-25412.htm

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/kinetic/diffus.html

http://www.ms.ornl.gov/htmlhome/tpuc/x-flash.html

http://www4.gvsu.edu/baume/newpage11.htm

"So why you chose that stupid name???"

LOL, you're right. It doesn't matter what word is chosen, someone will say that.

What worries me. . .

So Serp, what is the phenotype and genotype of the snake you just pictured? It has the "bloodred" belly and genetics? Is the reason you call it "diffuse" because it lacks the red coloration OR because the markings are not distinct?

While I don't like the name 'diffuse', I'm helpless to come up with anything applicable to this problem. I say problem because any change like this is going to create some degree of confusion.

Here are my questions. I understand the reason for breaking away for bloodred for all these animals is because we don't think a color namesake should apply to a pattern morph.
1) Is that correct?
2) How will one qualify or quantify the distinction between what one person thinks is 'diffuse' and another person says is 'not diffuse'? I'm not challenging it. Just want to make sure I understand and agree with it before I go changing my web site. 3) I think what you're proposing is that if it has the color of blood AND the previously recognized 'bloodred' belly, it is a 'bloodred'? If it has the indistinct patterns AND the previously recognized 'bloodred' belly, but lacks the color of blood, it's just a 'diffuse'? If it resembles the color of blood, has indistinct patterns and the previously recognized 'bloodred' belly pattern, it's a 'diffused bloodred'?

If that isn't correct, type out the correct qualifications.

Thanks in advance,

Don
www.cornsnake.NET

Firstly, when I got my original blood red stock from Bill and Kathy back in the early '80s, yes, they were definitely much darker red then what you tend to see now. That was what caught my eye so readily: those dark rich red animals with the clean white abdomens. The contrast was incredible.

Yes, we have lost some of that. My final example from this original stock died just last year, but I have that gene pool heavily laced within other projects. Some of the Lavender Blood Reds (now I KNOW that name will not stick for long!) appear to be very dark, almost purple colored, but they are not full adults yet, and I learned the hard way not to take too much stock in what maturing animals look like. Others are so lightly colored that it appears that they are my Hypo (arrrghh!) than not.

So is the talk to drop the name "blood red" based more on something that was lost, rather than what all of these outcrossed specimens NOW look like? The original blood red line had developed a horrible reputation for being difficult to get feeding. It was not at all unusual to lose better than 80 percent of a clutch unless you were willing to force feed them initially. Even green anoles were refused by many of them, so I have no idea what they considered as food at that hatchling stage. So obviously EVERYONE started outcrossing this line to try to increase the survivability of the line. Unfortunately, it appears that due care to try to maintain the dark base color was not a priority, or perhaps the mechanism that creates this darker appearing animal was (and is) just unknown.

And this brings up another point. EVERY cultivar we are now working on will eventually diverge among and within that group of animals to be further segregated by variances that become evident over time. Each of those variants can, and will, likely get tagged with their own identifiable name in order to be easily referenced in discussions and for marketing purposes. Then each of THOSE cultivars will likely diverge as well, creating even more named cultivars as they develop their own unique appearances. And so on and so on. This does not even take into consideration the natural combining of any and all of these traits together in every conceivable combination, which will further develop their own unique names, and THOSE combinations then branching off into various diverging paths.

I am part way down this path already, which I am certain some other people are progressing along as well, but probably not on the same exact path.

This is good and bad. Good, because there is likely a pretty nearly infinite amount of material to work with, and surprises will become pretty much commonplace. Good, because there is SO much material to go around, that anyone with a little bit of effort and time, can most certainly produce at least one type of corn snake that has never been seen before by anyone. But it is bad in the sense that it is unlikely we will ever know everything there is to know, and from a marketing standpoint, this will be in constant turmoil. Bad, because we will be saying "I don't know" more and more every year. And bad because the unpredictability is sometimes hard to swallow, being both welcome and unwelcome at the same time, just in different ways.

I have LOTS of cultivars that the original specimens are wearing labels I don't use any longer. Butters were something I originally called "yellow snows". Lavenders were "Mochas". So names are going to be fluid, as they likely need to be. As I learned more about what they were, and saw more of what the adults finally developed into, the names were dropped in order to accomodate my better understanding of what those animals actually are.

Somewhere along the line, we probably need to decide whether it is the name that needs to change to accomodate the changed LOOK in a particular cultivar, or if the name remains a constant based on the ORIGINAL look it meant and a new name (or names) necessarily created to track the variances that will undeniably occur.

Another determination needs to be made on WHEN exactly a new name SHOULD be applied to a cultivar. I do not believe it should be when a single animal is still a hatchling. But the argument about whether it is reliabily reproducible (sp?) could probably be debated quite heatedly. Most people trying to make a mark in this hobby/business are NOT going to be satisfied with the obvious amount of time and effort it would require to prove out that their new animal is worthy of a new name in the common nomenclature. To some people, 6 years will be more than the lifetime of their business, as far as they are concerned. And one thing I have seen for certain is that patience is a virtue that has long been lost to most of humanity. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most people would consider patience as a liability in this particular business.

Heck, I sure consider my patience as a liability as a business perspective! If I hadn't been so darned tedious trying to prove out what exactly Caramel and Lavender was, I could have had MANY of the projects that are only now bearing fruit at least 10 years ago. I had both Lavenders and Blood Reds since the mid 1980s. Why am I now still only getting a handful of Lavender Blood Reds every year?

Because I'm nuts, I guess. Not exactly a marketing genius......

Sorry, I'll proof read this later and edit as necessary. Got carried away it seems, and I have work to get to.

While I know there are some people who don't like the term faded, this is what I would like to see used rather than blended or diffused or whatever else has been proposed, if there has to be a change in terminology.

However, my personal opinion is that we shouldn't muck with it too much.

I think that the quality (while hard to determine as babies) should be dealt with by adding A-grade or B-grade to the term bloodred. If an animal looks like the ideal bloodred, it should be termed an A-grade bloodred. If it is still genetically a bloodred, but it isn't the ideal (in terms of bright red color or fading of pattern), it should be termed a B-grade bloodred.

This way we still keep the term bloodred, that everyone knows, yet we fix it so that it is more descriptive of the actual animal.

I haven't yet bred my bloodreds, but when I do, this is how I intend to market the babies. The nice ones will be termed A-grade, and the not so nice, B-grade.

As far as names for Caramel Bloodreds, Lavender Bloodreds, etc. cant we just decide on a name like we have for Pewters? The term "pewter" only implies a gray snake, not one that has bloodred in it. Why do the names for these other snakes (Caramel Bloodred, etc.) have to have a bloodred term added to it? Why can't a Caramel Bloodred be named a Mud corn (or whatever; I was just going by how Rich has described them in the past) and we all learn that this name means there is bloodred in the mix?