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Corals VS Salmons . . .
I have not read all of this thread, so forgive any redundancies herein.
Just touching on a few ideas, in (and relative to) this thread. I don't think anyone can say they completely understand what goes on under the hoods of the Coral Types.
I call the entire group CORAL TYPES or members of the CORAL COMPLEX. Personally, I do this because it's more of a complex, in which are found more than one gene mutation or gene modifier. BTW, I have bred Ghost corns Het Amel to others like them, and I never once got a single even remotely pink/or coral product. Hence, if someone says their Coral Snows are the result of only being homozygotes of Hypo A, Amel, and Anery, I would beg the genetic proof. Not my way of saying it's not possible, but I've been reproducing variants of these aggregate mutants for years and have never received anything that was pink or coral-colored. At least not any that were the product of strictly those three mutations. Therefore,none of the Coral Types I sell are derived from (owe their super color to) Hypo A. Is Hypo A in some of them? You betcha, but that is not what causes them to be called any degree or variation of CORAL.
When Walter talked about my line being devoid of Strawberry (by saying mine were Hypo A derivatives), I suppose there is a chance of that, but the reason I call all of them Coral-looking mutants members of the Coral Complex, is because I have not split out their family trees, to discover what makes 'em tick (why their coral or pink coloration is so distinctive). The only thing I know about "MY" line (originated from Jim Stelpflug) is that Hypo A is NOT the reason for their super colors. And, when I say MY LINE, I mean that if I call them Corals, it means that they are an aggregate of more than one Coral Type OR the reason for their pink/coral coloration is unknown to me. The first Snow corns I ever called Coral Snows were acquired from Jim Stelpflug. Hence, if I have some that have never knowingly been bred to an of the other known lines of Coral Types, I call those SALMON SNOWS. If I know they have more than one of those lines in them, I'll call them CORAL SNOWS. If I know they have one (or more) of the other two lines we know today (Neon or Champagne), I'll call them what I know them to be.
Before Jim Stelpflug was making Coral Snow Types, some of you will recall that the name "Coral Snow" was already in the hobby. First time I recall seeing some that were called "Coral Snows" was back in the late 1980s. They were quasi-coral, but compared to what we have today, they were barely pink. Hence, they fell out of hobby favor and had somewhat vanished until Jim Stelpflug resurrected them in the 1990s, via his line of Coral Snows. Not to say some of the origins were not out there, since I do not know that, but I was not seeing them widely marketed until Jim's came along. One day, I was taking to Jim S. on the phone and mentioned I'd crossed two Ghosts together and there were four snows. He excitedly urged me to hang onto those because they would develop deep pinks and corals, through maturity. I fed them for dozens of months and not one of them (even the males) ever exhibited any extraordinary amounts of the target colors. Upon that discovery, I asked Jim what was going on (even though my ghosts were not related to his)? He said, "I don't know. My Ghost to Ghost products always matured to show some shade or pink/coral". I studied my results, and relative to our previous conversation about his experiences with Ghost to Ghost pairings, I asked him, "do you think the Strawberry Mutation has anything to do with your seriously coral-colored ones?" to which he replied, "BINGO!". Jim was/is the kind not to blurt out premature findings. When he first sold me some Strawberry Mutants back in the 1990s, he said he thought they were probably the elusive T+ Albinos. Because they had reddish eye retinas, I was easily inclined to accept his theory, but he urged me not to make that statement until more was learned about them. Of course, today, we know that nobody has yet performed the dopa test to determine if ANY corn is actually a T+ albino.
What was unknown to Jim at that time (and consequently to all of us) was the heritability of the Strawberry Mutation. Approximately half of the so-called "Strawberry Mutants" I bought from Jim turned out to be singly Hypo A homozygotes; not Strawberries. It was NO BIG DEAL that they were not all Strawberry Mutants, but it did cloud the waters of my projects for many years - making me nervous to sell them with the label STRAWBERRY. Because Jim had been out-crossing what he believed to be recessively-inherited Strawberry homozygotes to Hypo A homozygotes - and because there was not a clear visual distinction between the two - from Proportional Mendelian results of his pairings, he made the false presumption that all of them were Strawberries; having the usual range of color intensity variations among them. Today, we understand that the Strawberry Mutation is dominant to wild-type. The only two pairings I've done to support that heritability reality was pairing a known Salmon Snow to Anery Mutants Het Amel. Those two pairings resulted in 50% classic Aneries and 50% Aneries with a pink over-wash.
Anyone who knows me will attest that I hate reproducing "unknowns" so I put the Strawberries on the back burner. NO, in the warming tray. That is to say, I did not intentionally plug many (or perhaps any) of my Strawberries into anything that would result in Snows. Of course, some Snows sprang from Strawberry to Strawberry pairings, but not by design. I will say at this time that every single Snow product of those pairings matured to have elevated levels of pink or salmon.
BTW, you probably all know that ten years ago, Salmon Snow and Coral Snow were synonymous. Jim changed the name of his to Salmon - not because he thought Coral snows owed their extra color to the Hypo A mutation this is NOT the case- but because he felt that too many people were calling any Snow with extra color CORAL SNOW, when he knew that not all of them in the marketplace were from his line. Marsha Matthews (aka: Poppy) said that she thought all these super pink or coral mutants should fall into a complex called CORAL. I agree, and without deep investigation of heritable origins - at this time - I'm calling all super pink/coral Snow Mutants members of the CORAL COMPLEX, but of course, I market them for what they are; perhaps Neons, Salmons, Champagnes, or aggregates thereof. In speaking to Stephen Wagner (namer of the NEON line of Coral Snow Types), he told me that his originated from the original Lloyd Lemke line of pink and green snows; Bubblegum Snows. I think this is why some of the Neons have green, and some do not - just as the late Lloyd Lemke produced some without green. What more his line of Neons have (if anything), I'm unaware.
Regarding the difference between my Coral Ghosts and Jeff Galewoods (JMG Reptile), here are the details. Jeff purchased those insanely pink/coral Snows from Jim Stelpflug in the same year I received some from Jim. As everyone knows, Jeffs were coral on rhoids, while mine essentially had a pale blush of pink. I paid next-to-nothing for mine, and they were sold to me as ghosts from his super line of Salmon Ghosts, so no promises were broken in my transaction. Since mine came from the same line as the ones Jeff bought from Jim, I can only deduce (without proof) that his were homozygotes and mine were visual heterozygotes. Too much has happened in cornsnake herpetoculture to make it financially feasible for me to do breeding trials to determine if that is the case, but hopefully, someone reading this thread will have evidence to the pro or con. I welcome such breeding reasults.
Instead of evaluating or sharing my thoughts about things being said in this thread (none were offensive or glaringly inaccurate), I thought it would be better to offer relative details that know to be true. I have theories (like we all do) about why corns are pink or coral-colored, but my "guesses" are usually wrong, so I'll refrain from saying why I think some are super-colored and some are not. Other than offering my theory that uber-pink or coral ones are Homos and less-intensely colored ones are visual Hets.
Don
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BOUT' CORNS !!
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