Calling the TESSERA EXPERTS!

I'm just curious, Tom, but is that Sadie in the pic?

Originally Posted by ecreipeoj

This is the key breeding that proved to me that what everybody has been calling a "Striped" Tessera is actually a Moltey Tessera OR Motley/Striped Tessera.

My Anery Tessera het Striped Dilute was produced from a breeding between Tess het Ghost x Striped Blue. I tested my original Tessera to every gene in my colony because it was sold with unknown hets. He did not produce a Motley or Striped, so he wasn't carrying either gene.

When I bred him to my Striped Blue, which is Striped/Stripe, or we wouldn't be looking at a Striped, the only gene possible to be passed onto its offspring is Striped, so I produced an Anery Tessera het Striped Dilute.

The Blue Motley that proved the Motley Tess pheno to me was a result of a breeding between a Blue Moltey ph Striped x Striped Blue. She picked up one gene from the Motley parent and one gene from the Striped parent, and is a Motley/Striped. Her pattern proves the recessive Striped Gene has NO effect on the dominant Motley Pattern.

This year I hatched clutches from Tess het Striped Opal (Tess het Ghost x Striped Lavender het Opal) x Striped het Opal (20 eggs) and produced the Tessera pheno and Stripes only. Nothing that looked like Tom's Tessera. I also bred Anery Tess het Striped Dilute X Striped Blue (18 eggs) again, I only produced the Tess and Striped phenos. Some perfect Stripes, some Vanishing and some like the Striped Tess photos I posted above.

When I hatched out the clutch from Anery Tess het Striped Dilute x Blue Motley het Striped, I produced ALL possible phenos except Striped Tessera. This was due to low odds, BUT the key is, since my breeding was reversed, with 100% known genetics, Tess het Striped X Motley/Striped, I saw what everybody has been calling a "Striped" Tessera is in fact a Motley Tessera.

The reason the mistake has been reoccurring, is because when you breed a Motley Tess or Motley/Striped Tess x Striped, you can produce the mistake again, without knowing it. The "Striped" Tess is actually a Motley/Striped Tess and looks just like the parent "Striped Tess", so everybody thought they were correct.

The problem is that the Motley Tess pheno was mistakenly thought to be a "Striped" Tess pheno in the beginning. Each time they were bred to a Striped, the dominant Motley gene in their Tessera produced some Motley offspring of which some were Tesseras.

Awesome data, Joe. Thanks for sharing.

I'm very interested about your theory that there are two different Striped Mutations in Tessera corns. If that is what I deduce from this post, even without actual DNA evidence, if you bred a Striped Tessera Corn to a Striped California King, Mendelian proportions should indicate two different alleles of striped-type gene mutations. Since the Striped gene mutation in Kings is not inherited like the Striped gene mutation in corns, it would be easy to find that "some" Tesseras owe their stripe to a Striped gene mutation that was heretofore only in a King Snake species. Mendelian results from such a breeding trial would be tantamount to actual DNA comparison and evidence of hybridization. I never thought of such a trial until this post. Awesome. One may have to breed many different Tessera Corns to Striped Kings for double-blind results - since identification of Striped Tessera genotypes is not a slam-dunk.

BTW, I've always agreed with the reality you cite (Motley dominates Stripe) but in such a visual hobby, when people see STRIPE they wanna call it a Striped Mutant. A possible parallel would be someone asked to call out the color of a card. If the card is green, but the word red is on it, they may initially call out RED as the color of the card? We've been blessed with the marker of width between stripes and/or thickness of stripes in discerning between Striped and Motley mutants.

To my knowledge, the Super Tessera Corn produced by Graham and now owned by Vin Russo is still the only one in existance? Strange that only one super-form has been demonstrated?

Off topic, but BTW again, I presume that wide-(or reverse-) striped California kings are polygenetic variants of the Striped Cal. King Mutation?

This is my caramel tess produced from a tess het caramel, motley X same pairing.

Sorry guys I kind of left this here and haven't been around much, I shall read all your responses tomorrow night.

Thanks for the input so far!

after talking to SMR... vanishing strip tessera do exist... so im voting tessera strip becose of the strip that doesint stop... the head... and the wide band...

Originally Posted by SquamishSerpents

Sorry guys I kind of left this here and haven't been around much, I shall read all your responses tomorrow night.

Thanks for the input so far!

Katia, much of it digresses from the core intent of your thread, but there's very good information for all of us in this thread. Much more Tessera breeding will be necessary before we have a better understanding of its genetic mechanics.

Thanks for starting this thread.

Don

ho yes by the way those 2 snakes are from me... and i had 0 motley in the clutch so im taking out every possibility of pinstrips

Most of you are aware that FAR from the United States are rat snakes found around the Greek Islands that have a mutation like Tessera. This mutant that is fairly common in the wild range of Leopard Rat Snakes Elaphe situla is remarkably like our corn snake Tessera Mutation. If you GOOGLE IMAGE search Striped Leopard Rat Snake, you'll see many examples. I'm told that striped variants are found that exhibit contiguous stripes, but those are not the result of an additional striped gene mutation - like our Tessera corn snake mutants.

This picture of a wild-caught mutant was provided today by Daniel Bohle of Germany.

Anyone who is familiar with cellular automaton as it pertains to pattern formation is aware that the entire animal kingdom displays the same similar patterns, so it shouldn't be surprising at all that various snake species will display similar patterns.

Don, I read Joe's postings regarding the striping in tesseras as follows:

1. The dominant CA king stripe gene creates the classic "tessera" pattern.
2. Both the motley and corn snake "striped" genes create a non-tessalated tessera (i.e., lateral flanks devoid of tessalation).
A. What we have been calling tessera stripes are in fact motley/stripe genetically.
B. True tessera stripes highly resemble vanishing stripes with virtually no head patterning.

*You can't have a tessera without the CA king stripe gene, but a tessera can exist without the corn motley/stripe gene

I think that's what Joe was indicating.