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Old 01-31-2021, 08:30 PM   #5
Rich Z
Actually, I coined the phrase "Miami Phase" many moons ago when I used to take trips down to the Miami area in the 1980s looking for small local pet shops selling local caught corns. And I also spent some time trying to rustle up my own captures in the area when I got lucky. I tended to gravitate towards the steel gray backgrounds with red orange, and even a sort of burgundy colored blotches.

I remember seeing an absolutely gorgeous specimen at one pet shop that had a brilliantly silver background with deep black borders around the bright red blotches. Orange blotches on the side that almost seemed neon. Really an eye catcher! It was a full adult, and the pet shop wanted $35 for it. Which at the time, was a pretty outrageous price for a corn snake. I still kick myself thinking about my passing it up.

I also saw a DOR specimen on Pine Island over on the west coast of Florida that was a really stunning example of the "Miami Phase" look as well.

So it was sort of a semi locality based name, because at the time, I had no idea if it was anything that could be reliably reproduced from offspring during breeding trials. And, of course, that orange background coloration seemed to be pretty unpredictable as to how prevalent it would become when those babies grew up and got some size on them.

"Crimsons" were actually hypomelanistic "Miami Phase" corns, and the Candy Cane line I started (I did not create the original line, as that line came from Kevin Enge, who got his stock from Glen Slemmer), used the "Miami Phase" as the base stock to breed amelanism into that line.