Creamsicle Corn Snake - Elaphe guttata x emoryi

Creamsicle Corn Snake - Elaphe guttata x emoryi

I am fascinated by all the various color morphs and such that are available and while building my collection I have been doing some thinking about what I want in the long term for my own breeding projects. I've run across various threads here warning about crossing other species/subspecies with the Corn and how it will confuse some folks and produce animals that are not 100% Elaphe guttata and that it is important to maintain the purity of the Corn breed. So after reading some of those threads I was curious how the Creamsicle Corns are perceived and how the hardcore herptoculturist feels about this Corn and about breeding the Creamsicle to other "pure" Corn morphs?

I hope I asked that question in a manner that is not confusing...

Thanks,

Lee

Good question Lee and well put.

I have two different lines of snake that are guttata X emoryi. One is a Creamsicle line that I bought when I had less then 10 snake to my name. I had not progressed far enough in the hobby to develope an opinion about hybrids (or intergrades as some prefer for that cross). I just liked the high yellow snakes. After being in the hobby for awhile and doing more research, I realized the implications involved in mixing up the emoryi gene in the corn line and decided to stick with strictly Creamsicles.

The other line I ended up with is a pair of hypos with about 1/8 emoryi. I didn't know at the time that they were part emoryi. They came from a Crimson line and I saw some odd color that interested me in the hatchling pics. Once I bought them, the breeder realized what had happened and immediately notified me of the suspected heritage. If he hadn't warned me, I'd have bred that male to my pure corn Crimson line and been none the wiser. Some will say no big deal but it has made enough of an impression on me that I will not personally mix the two.

Creamsicles are very well established and commonly accepted. The hypo line is not so well defined.

I've made it a personal policy not to ditribute known crosses that are not an accepted "morph". If I were to do a cross like say, Lav X emoryi or Creamsicle, that would leave me with a bunch of normals with emoryi blood that may not be distinguishable from pure corns. I'd have to keep them all forever or.....well, that's why I won't do that type of cross.

You'll see a lot of different views on the subject, none are 'correct'. It's a personal choice, but at least when you make that choice you'll have some good info to go on. Just be responsible.

I agree with Clint,

I have a couple creams and I really like them as I too have a strong liking for the yellow in the morphs. I also would not intentionally cross them with my other corn morphs. I think they are beautiful for what they are and would expecially be concerned about crosses such as Clint mentioned since the offspring may well be not recognized as emory blood and thus cause confussion down the line. But this is my opinion and others will have their own, it is indeed a matter of personal views.
If you do get and breed creams, my suggestion would be to be careful of how they are used in your breeding and ALWAYS represent any stock with emory blood as emories.
Good luck

Thanks a ton for the insight Clint and Dianne. I was suspect of that answer but am glad to "hear" it in writing. I have seen both of your collections and definately respect both your opinions on this matter. I guess I would consider myself a "purist" and feel the same way concerning the mixing of the two subspecies.

I do like the yellow color morph in those but since today I am strickly a Corn Keeper today I will have to be resigned to the Butters and Carmels of the Corn world.

Again, thanks for the replies...this place is so great and I can't say it often enough how much I owe to the kind and sharing folks here.

Lee

I'm about as hardcore as they come.

As I understand it, creamsicles originated (at least in part) as an attempt to produce a snake that was more yellow than the unmodified amelanistic corns. The caramel mutant does a better job of making a yellow amelanistic (AKA butter), so any need for creamsicle is over. I think all snakes derived from an emoryi x guttata cross should be withdrawn from breeding so that the strain dies out.

Hey Paul,

I bet all the guys who are breeding their Butter and Carmels smiled REAL big when they read those words and the Creamsicle folks, well, I imagine something like this :argue:

Can't say as I disagree with you in the least as a new guy coming into this the emoryi mix in all of this has been a bit confusing.

Thanks

Lee

Well, you know there are different ways of looking at this.

Personally, I made a decision a long time ago to only work with animals I felt reasonably confident were pure Elaphe guttata guttata. And I have stuck with that through thick and thin.

But there are wrinkles in every plan. I am now working with several examples of Upper Keys corns. At one time they were classified as a separate species (Elaphe rosacea), but now they aren't. Who is to say two years from now that could change back. Then where am I? Or suppose that the Miami Phase corn is considered distinctive enough that some bright eyed and bushy tailed taxonomist somewhere makes a strong case and suddenly that version of the corn snake gets a different subspecific name. It could happen.

On the other side of this same coin, suppose this same taxonomist makes a sufficient case that emoryi (as well as the Kisatchie - sp?) are simply locality variants of Elaphe g. guttata (yeah I know about Pantherophis, but I am not inclined to use that name)? Then all of a sudden the "crosses" with guttata and emoryi are now ok?

Take this all with a grain of salt. You can take a firm stand, but you may be standing on quicksand. Everyone is at the complete mercy of what someone else may have done 20 years ago that is represented in the stock you now have. I heard rumors of a guy that bred many of the tricolors and the way he kept them was in huge outdoor pits. They all interbred together and he sold off those babies for years based simply on what they looked like. This is not a comfirmed story, but I heard it from several sources.

So "purity" is an ideal that may not even be realistic any longer.

Point well taken Rich and thanks for the "flip side" to that arguement/question...

Lee

I look at it like this:

Lots of folks like milk.
Lots of folks like water.
A few folks like milk in their water.
More folks want their water free from any milk at all, even if they like milk.

However, once the milk has been introduced into the water, no matter how many times it is diluted, that water will never be "pure" again.

Keep your glasses separate, and you'll never have to question what you're drinking (assuming you ever knew in the first place!)

Darin Chappell said:

However, once the milk has been introduced into the water, no matter how many times it is diluted, that water will never be "pure" again.

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Just because I think both of us can appreciate the "technically..." aspect of an argument:

This would only be true if you were using an infinite amount of milk and water. If you start with X number of water molecules and X number of "milk molecules," and then you replace Y milk molecules with Y water molecules per dilution, you will eventually remove all of the milk and end up with pure water. (Or you could just distill it, hehe.)

The differences are in the genes, and there are a finite number of genes in each species. Seeing how they are so similar to each other, there can't be a huge number of genes exclusive to one species or the other. If you continually breed back to corns in each generation, at some point you would get "pure" corns again. To be fair, it would take more than a handful of generations to get there, though.

Keep your glasses separate, and you'll never have to question what you're drinking (assuming you ever knew in the first place!)

Click to expand...

To illustrate a perspective that hasn't been represented so far...

A "pure" thing of any species doesn't exist in nature, it only exists in our minds. How precisely can you or anyone else define a "pure" cornsnake? Whatever that definition is, I assure you it is arbitrary, so even then it is a matter of opinion...
IMO if it looks, eats, acts, lives, and breeds like what you expect from a cornsnake, then it is a cornsnake, regardless of if there is some "impure blood" in its ancestry. In fact, as you said, you never do know in the first place, so how is it bad if you don't know in the second place?

We only assume that we know, and then try to act like there's some unwavering definition of pure and that any deviation from that is intrinsically bad. That's where I have a problem with the current mainstream attitude about intergrades and hybrids. It really reminds me of the arguments that all inbreeding, without exception, is sick and wrong...

Here's something to think about:

We are changing the "species" either way. Look at the captive population compared to the wild population... it's obvious that our selection pressures are very different from natural selection pressures. We are in the process of reshaping the captive population to match our tastes, and everyone who breeds is doing so in their own direction. We are heading toward snakes that will be as different from their wild counterparts as dogs are from wolves. Since all of our tastes as breeders differ, on what grounds can anyone claim the authority to say that their idea of how the species should be changed is the "correct" one?

Anyway, I'm not advocating the distribution of mislabeled animals, either. I think all labeling should be as accurate as possible. But I also don't see any need to go overboard worrying about an undetectable "impurity" in any individual snake, especially when you can't be sure of any individual's "purity" to begin with, no matter who or where you got it from.

An interesting topic and difficult question - one I wrestle with now as my major color preference in corns is creamsicles and while I don't want to introduce other corn color morphs to it, I do want to incorporate the patterns from pure corns. I appreciate Serpwidgets perspective on the whole issue because humans are the ones who have defined and determined what constitutes a species - at least as far as separation between those that can and will freely interbreed.

I recognize the responsibility to inform buyers of what they are gettting when they purchase from me, but many people buy a pet and down the line decide to breed, but by then have forgotten the details of what I told them and they sell progeny that are 'contaminated' although they look like normal or amel corns. My only solution is that anyone who is really concerned about wanting water with no milk in it will buy from breeders who can be trusted to guarantee that.

I disagree that the caramel gene can substitute for the creamsicle effect - and I just don't find the yellow as appealing as the orange tones that come frmo emory influence - these are examples I have of each color - the orange is what appeals to me.

While I think my butters will possibly enhance the yellow of the creamsicles - this one is just too yellow for my taste



and I am looking for something more like this (in striped!)



mary v.

Serp,

I cannot argue with anything you set forth. You're absolutely right about the issues being arbitrary ones, established solely on the ideas of a few labelers somewhere down the road.

However, we accept the same concepts in other animals in which man has inserted his breeding processes. A German Shepherd, bred to a Beagle, may eventually have offspring that look like the perfect German Shepherd, after enough generations of breeding back to the standard has passed. But the AKC would never knowingly accept such dogs as purebreds. Is it assinine? To a degree, but when I plop $500.00 down for a purebred dog, you better believe that is what I expect to get.

It may be an arbitrary standard, but it is the responsibility of the buyer to set the standard of what he wants, and the responsibility of the seller to meet the required standard the buyer set. If any degree of misrepresentation were involved in the process, it may not make any real difference in the outcomes expected by the new owner, but why should anyone have to settle for less than what they originally wanted?

I don't know what the real answer is, or even if there is one to be had at all! I just know that, as much as lies within me, all I can do is to keep what I have separated from cross contamination (someone wanting a pure emoryi would be upset about corn being there too, perhaps!), represent everything I have as honestly as I can, and encourage those to whom I sell to follow the same principles of breeding/selling. Beyond that, I have no power and cannot take those responsibilities upon myself.

Serp and Darin,

I totally understand and respect both sides of your "arguement." I definitely lean toward the "hybrid" side of the "scales" (no pun intended). I am really partial to them. I think they are beautiful animals, and I feel as if I should be able to produce them if I choose to.

Darin, the main thing that you said which I am in total agreement with is, "All I can do is to...represent everything I have as honestly as I can, and encourage those to whom I sell to follow the same principles of breeding/selling. Beyond that, I have no power and cannot take those responsibilities upon myself."

Yes, I cut a small portion out because I have hybrids...and I don't consider them to be contaminated. I do feel VERY strongly that offspring from them should always be represented honestly, however.

I also think there is no clear cut answer. Variance among people and animals is what makes this world so special, in my opinion.

Mary, if you want to introduce emoryi blood into corn lines and keep a 50-50 cross, then you simply need to purchase some great plains rat snakes. Breed them to the corns that display the pattern/colors you want to incorporate into the cross. You can then breed the siblings together and still keep the 50-50 genetic ratio.

Interestingly Darin, your example of the purebred dog registry is a good one, but it may be worth noting that many livestock (cattle and sheep - I am not sure about others) will actually accept 'upgraded' livestock into the registry. A commercial producer who has crossbred animals of no confirmed pedigree can breed them to pure bulls through several generations (I believe 7/8 pure is what is required in the progeny) and they will then be considered purebred and acceptable to the registry, and considered pure for future registration purposes.

I agree that if I breed my creamsicles to striped amel corns and produce amel creamsicle crosses het for striped as part of my long term goal - the only thing I can really be responsible for is advising the buyers that purchase from me.

For me it is hard to get past the feeling of guilt about 'contaminating the gene pool' based on how strongly pure corn breeders express their feelings on this subject. Not enough to prevent me from doing the breedings, but enough to make me question it intermittantly.

I have looked into means of permanently identifying creamsicle line snakes that I produce (tattoo, scale clipping, microchip) so that they could always be seen to be creamsicle lines but microchips are the only thing that seems permanent and aside from the cost, they are not visible.


mary v.

I don't want anyone to misunderstand me when I use the word "contaminate." I am simply referring to the presence of unwanted genes, or any other characteristic that might be introduced into a purchased "product."

For example, roses are weeds, if you are trying to grow dandelions. Further, I am pretty certain that Serp would be willing to pay a bit more in some cases, if he knew for certain that the animals had no amelanistic ancestors in their "mix."

I'm not saying that hybrids/intergrades are inherently bad things, or that those who breed them ought to be lined up and shot for their actions. I am saying that breeding them and selling/giving away the progeny brings with it a sense of responsibility that I cannot control, so I choose not to breed them at all.

That's all.

Darin Chappell said:

Further, I am pretty certain that Serp would be willing to pay a bit more in some cases, if he knew for certain that the animals had no amelanistic ancestors in their "mix."

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Guilty as charged! Once I get certain morphs going, I want to hatch entire clutches of the same morph and select from there. For example, it would reduce the yield of a hypo pewter X hypo pewter clutch by taking away a fourth of the hatchlings from the selection pool. Blegh!

Just you wait, my female bloodred I'm using as founding stock is het amel... :bomb:

There are a lot

of interesting points brought up here.
I agree with Serp that if enough water particles are used to replace the milk particles in a cup of milk diluted water, then eventually the dilution becomes inconsiquential. The question is, how long does it take to 'undilute' the combined snakes? And in the end I expect it to be only as important as it will be to the person purchasing it. Some want it, some don't and some could care less.
I guess if a person wants to be sure of what they are getting, then they should purchase from someone known to honestly represents their stock.
But this all brings a question to my mind. How about the already established corn morphs that we love? Could any of them possibly be found to have emory in them if we had the means to dig back and check on it? Can anyone say for 100% sure that all the varied 'pure corn' morphs are indeed pure? Or is it possible that some of the exciting morphs may perhaps have somehow been 'tainted' in past generations? I am not saying that I feel this to be a fact nor am I trying to use this for saying I am for haphazard diluting, just more food for thought.:eatsmiley

And Darin, I like your analogy. As I am a breeder of show dogs I can relate to this. Yes, no matter how far removed a dog is from its outbreeding, it will never be considered a pure bred again and I also would be highly upset if I were to pay good money for a show Brittany only to find that a Springer Spaniel had been used a couple generations or so back. And I don't know about cattle and sheep but with horses like Arabs, if there is any outcrossing, even with future generations of breeding strickly back to Arabs the offspring will only be allowed up to a 7/8 Arab registry. No matter how many generations pass it will never again be considered 100% Arab. That is, unless things have changed in the past few years. Of course, with snakes it is not so easy a situation. There are no registries, no shows, no exact guide lines. So, I suppose it all falls into what the individual feels right for them and what people are wanting to purchase.:shrugs:

I don't see any 'black & white' in this issue but even with all this being said, I guess, on a personal level, I still have to stand with the fact that I would like to be informed if there is known outcrossing in a prospective purchase and I would not knowingly breed creams into my corn morphs. I would however breed cream to cream or emory to corn to pruduce creams. I like creams and got them because I like their distinctive look but I personally would feel uncomfortable, in my own mind, knowingly diluting. But, as I said, this is only my personal opinion.

Wow, this is quite an interesting thread of discussion. As it stands, I agree with Serp, Darin, and CornCrazy on their views. That's the fastest way that I can sum up my views on it all.

I agree with CornCrazy in that I think Creams are beautiful animals. And I also think it should be my right to produce them and cross them with whatever I wish. I have a female yellow cream I purchased from Don this year, and I have a male butter from Rich I purchased in 2001. I would like to cross the two and see what I get, but then what do I do with the offspring? Keep all of them? I don't want to do that. Or sell some? That would be nice, if only people would follow my lead and make it known that they're an emoryi cross if they should sell the offspring of their crosses. But I cannot depend on people to do that. Once the snake is out of my hands, its up to the other people to decide what they want to do with that snake and represent it as. All I can do is state what it was when it left my home. But as for that cross, I'll have to think about it some and see if I think it'll be a good idea or not.

Serp is right in that the corns we all have are remarkably different from anything in the wild. So changes within the breeding stock is so dynamic none of us can predict where it'll go from here. But who's to say that maybe we aren't strengthening the gene pool a little? I probably belong to a small minority here, but I don't feel that emoryi are any different from corns other than the scientific jargon we tacked on to them.

I'm not a big fan of purebreed anything. Sure they're pretty, but about all they're good for is a show. Every purebreed animal I've ever had has had some sort of genetic defect and ended up dying on me, or had to be euthanized. Purebreed to me = inbred. Everything I currently own is a mut and they're all the much healthier for it I believe; cats, dog, ferret, goats, bird, etc. So who's to say that by mixing in a smidgeon of a very very closely related (and maybe genetically identical) isn't bad to add new genes to the mix? I've seen what inbreeding peacocks can do, you end up with short-legged birds, birds with mental problems (yes it happens), and chicks that die days after hatching due to skeletal deformities.

I dunno, I think that at this point, unless you've had individual snakes for years and years it'd be awfully hard to determine exactly what is floating around in its gene pool. It would be nice to be able to identify what individuals have emoryi in their blood and whatnot. But until that day comes, I'll just have to take a leap of faith and trust you all in what I buy is what you say it is. That's about all I can do at this point. I'm an honest person and I think the majority of you all are honest. But all it takes is that one instance of greed to misrepresent something and we're in this situation.

Sorry for rambling. Not my usual coherent, well thought out self tonight.

Darin Chappell said:

I don't want anyone to misunderstand me when I use the word "contaminate." I am simply referring to the presence of unwanted genes, or any other characteristic that might be introduced into a purchased "product."
......................................................
I am saying that breeding them and selling/giving away the progeny brings with it a sense of responsibility that I cannot control, so I choose not to breed them at all.

That's all.

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Thanks Darin - appreciate your clarification. It was not your comments here that fed my guilt - more an accumulated sense over time spent on various lists - and the fact that I do feel the same responsibility to the species that you have expressed.

From your comments above, I better understand that you have chosen not to even breed these because of the responsibilty that goes with them. Definately something I can understand and an option I have considered. Thanks for your additional comments, helped me to understand better,

mary v.

Jim Stelpflug has done many emoryi crosses, including Butter and emoryi. You can check out some pics on his site if you follow this link:
Southwest Wisconsin Reptiles
ButterCream, CandyCream and SunCream come to mind.