CORN SNAKE GENETICS REVELATIONS

Updated Striped, Diffused, Bloodred, and Border-less Theories

I have a new theory that explains something that has been haunting me for as long as I have bred Striped Corns (Striped Lavenders), CUBES! This discovery along with my pursuits creating Magmas (Lava Bloods) for a second time, also refines the genetic make up of Bloodreds.

Bloodreds are not just Diffused Corns genetically. They are RedCoat (see through red plastic on top, Joe P), Red Factor (back ground red, Don S.), Red Blotched (3 genes that add RED), Masque, and Diffused Corns if you have good Bloods. My work with Magmas proves to me that Diffused, nor Masque REMOVE the borders from Corns. Diffused removes the checkers from the belly pattern and blurs the pattern, nothing else. Masque adds the bald heads and blurs the pattern, but neither one of them remove much black from the side pattern, or remove the borders of our Bloods. See photos of my second Magma Flow line,WITHOUT the Border-less gene. Magma Flows are still a work in progress.

I have created Lava Bloodreds (Magmas) two times now. The first time I saved back breeders like everybody else did, the most DIFFUSED and the LIGHTEST. The second time, I used Jasper County Lava Okeetees, instead of Lava Corns and I saved back breeders that had some borders and darker. I soon discovered that there was a Mutant Gene involved with the borders of OUR Bloodreds. It was the same gene I have described and/or noticed in our Mutant Corn Snake Gene Pool before, Border-less.

We all get so caught up with the color and patterns of our Mutant Genes, that nobody notices the one thing that makes Corn Snakes different than Rat Snakes. Corn Snakes have borders, and Rat Snakes do not have borders, not just because they are Rat Snakes, they do not have borders because they are HOMOZYGOUS for the Border-less Gene, No borders or black on their sides. Rat Snakes have a lot of Mutant Genes too.

The Border-less Gene is almost dominant, but not quite. Het Border-less in Corn Snakes, removes just about all of the border, but there may be a tiny bit, or just a brown halo, and the black on their sides is reduced. Homo Border-less, completely removes the entire border from Corns and the black on the side pattern. Now lets add Border-less to our Bloodred genetic make up, RedCoat, Red Factor, Red Blotched, BORDER-LESS, Masque, Diffused and you now have the most extremely diffused Bloodreds, that WE have all been visually selecting for our entire Corn Snake Breeding effort. Each and every one of you and I, have been, UNKNOWINGLY, visually selecting our Bloodred Corns to be homozygous for the Border-less Rat Snake Gene. Het Border-less, more diffusion than Diffused, homo Border-less, extreme diffusion. Extreme diffusion = Border-less, no borders or black side pattern. Perfect Bloods!

I have always thought that something like Masque, Diffused, and/or Border-less had something to do with Cubes and partial striped patterns on Striped Corns. Everybody, me included, thought maybe heavy borders from something like Okeetees may cause perfect stripes, but nobody really knew. Everybody, including myself, just began visually selecting for perfect Stripes, and now that is all I have for the most part, and most breeders now produce almost perfect Stripes. Sometimes Cubes still pop up in my Projects, but WHY?

Photos of my Magma Flow line without the Border-less Gene: Bloodred het Ice, Granite het Lava, Magmas het Anery, Ice Blood, homo Masque and Diffused, with lots of BLACK! With Magmas it will be lots of purple.

I have been breeding Corns for 35 years now, and my goal has become to produce new combinations of our Mutant Corn Snake Genes, that are the first of their kind. I have created my share of first of their kind Combines, starting with Striped Lavender and Striped Opal. My current goal in my projects is to produce every color Mutation in Striped Sunkissed pattern, Stargazer Free. so I have been working with the Striped Gene heavily the last few years. My newest creations are Striped Topaz Sunkissed and Striped Blue Sunkissed. I also have Striped Butter Sunkissed and Striped Lavamel Sunkissed, from the same projects, all Stargazer Free.

So what was the trigger, that caused me to figure out what causes Cubes in our Corns and what causes perfect Stripes (¾ or better)? I bred a male Honey het Amel Striped Lava x Perfect Striped Lava Corn. The Honey came from a breeding of a perfect Striped Butter, I received from Rich Z. So, perfect Stripes on both sides. The clutch hatched but, only two stripes were produced, a Striped Lava het Honey, and a Striped het Topaz Sunkissed. They were both perfect Striped females. I saved back all of the Lavas het Striped Honey, and the “Normals” in the clutch went to the wholesaler. This was a second line I created to produce Striped Topaz Sunkissed. I try to make multiple lines of each project, to mix.

What I noticed recently is in the photos attached. My Lava Corns het Striped Honey are Border-less, with their perfect Striped siblings. I keep a line of pure Jasper County Lava Okeetees, so when I finally saw that my Lava Corns were completely BORDER-LESS, it dawned on me, what if the answer to Cubes is the OPPOSITE, of what I have always suspected, what if the answer to perfect Stripes, was the OPPOSITE, of what I have always suspected?

I began looking through my colony at all of my Mutant Corn Lines and checked my breeding records, and found that all of the breeders that I produced Perfect Stripes from, were Homo BL or Perfect Stripes, and a few were het Border-less. So was born my new Corn Snake Mutant Theory, PERFECT Striped Corn Snakes are homo for the Border-less Rat Snake Gene, just like PERFECT Bloodreds are.

So my final Corn Snake Mutant Gene Theory, is that for my entire 35 years of breeding Corn Snake, I have been, UNKNOWINGLY, visually selecting my Striped and Bloodred lines to be homozygous for the Border-less Gene, a Rat Snake Gene, and so has everybody else that has ever bred Corn Snakes. To say that our Corn Snake Mutants are “Pure Corn as far as I know”, is simply not TRUE, they never have been since Hypo. Hypos and Ghost were around 35 years ago, both were Border-less. Rich Z Hypo Okeetees and Specter Ghosts prove Hypo does not remove the borders of our Corns.

To add to my Theory, NONE of our Corn Snake Mutant Genes, remove the border from our Corns, not Masque, Diffused or even Motley ( I have a wild line of Motley from Dixie County that has a bit of borders and some checkers). Only the Border-less Rat Snake Gene, completely removes the borders from our Corns. Look at all of the photos on this site and focus on the BORDERS and side BLACK objectively. From Normals, Amels, Anerys, Caramels, Hypos, Lavas, Lavenders, Ghost, and on and on, ALL, are for the most part, either het Border-less or homo Border-less, unless bred to specifically have borders, like Reverse Okeetees, Okeetees, or Miamis. I could add Hypo Okeetees, Specter Ghost, and my Magmas Flow to that list. All wild caught Corns have borders of one kind or another and lots of black side pattern. Border-less completely removes all areas that USE to be black, everything that is a “Corn Snake”, it vanishes, its gone, no more black anywhere, no evidence there ever was any black.

So what causes CUBES in our Stripes? The borders of our Corns of course! One kind or another, and het Border-less, het Masque, het Diffused, and others I am sure, but to get PERFECT STRIPES, they need to be homozygous for Border-less. To get the most PERFECT DIFFUSED Bloodreds, they need to be homozygous for Border-less.

Photo:Striped het Topaz Sunkissed, Lava Striped het Honey(Opaque), and Border-less Lavas het Striped Honey.

So are you happier now that you have more Corn Snake Genetic knowledge, or SADDER? Nothing has changed, just the TRUTH has been revealed. My new Theory can be applied to your breedings and you will get the same results. If you check your records, you will see that you produce Border-less Corns from your Perfect Stripes, and Perfect Stripes from your Border-less Corns.

How has the Border-less Gene bred so thoroughly bred into our Corn Snake Gene Pool? Rick Z said the first time he can remember a Border-less Corn, was a Hypo Corn. Nobody knew much back then about our Corn Snake Mutant Genetics, and just assumed that is what a Hypo Corn looked like. What looks better, a Border-less Ghost, or Specter (Ghost with borders)? Many of our Mutant Combines just look better, or more extreme when they are Border-less. From Ghosts and Sunglows, to Stripes and Bloodreds, they all look better Border-less. Since Border-less is almost dominant, it has easily been VISUALLY bred, into each and every Mutant Line of Corns we have, without ANYBODIES knowledge. How could we know when we couldn't even see the Border-less Gene right in front of our faces. The Hypo Gene alone, could explain the current rate of occurrence in out Corns, without the numerous other possibilities of Rat Snakes being bred into our Corns, such as Hypo, Caramel, Ultramel, Palmetto, and many other possibilities. All right wing conspiracies, I'm sure.

Why does any of this make a difference? New understanding of our Corn Snake Genetics has always interested me. I have seen every thing come since I started with Amel, Anery, Hypo and Motley. The first Stripes I saw was at the Seattle Zoo. Ernie Wagner had a box of them, and I remember them to be all Cubes of different types. They came from Europe is all I remember. I bought some, but they wouldn't eat. Boy that was a long time ago. I saw Cubes again in my Striped Lavender Project. I used a half Striped Amel, het Border-less I presume, from Lloyd L X Rich Z Lavender, and produced some Normals and Amels. Some were Border-less and some had borders. When I bred them together, I produce everything imaginable, but only a few nice Stripes. Now I know why. Some of the Project adults were Het Border-less, and some were not, thus, the best I could do, het Border-less x Same, was 1 in 4, would be homo Border-less, or (Perfect Stripes) and all the rest Cubes of one type or another. Why does it make a difference? I wonder if the Scientists that described Corns and Rat Snakes differently, even had a clue that Rat Snakes didn't have borders or black on their sides because they were homo for a mutant gene Border-less. If they knew Rat Snakes were just Corn Snakes that were homo for a Mutant Gene called Border-less, would they have described them as being different in the first place? I guess Rats are different in other ways but, mainly, they are missing black, vanished, gone!

Why does this make a difference when we consider our Corn Snake Mutants?, it doesn't. Nothing has changed, after 1000 of breeders have contributed to the Gene Pool. New knowledge is just that, new knowledge, we have came a long way. My knowledge of Corn Snake Genetics today is light years ahead of where I started 35 years ago. New Genetic Knowledge helps us plan our breedings better. Where would Our Corn Snake Mutant Combines be without Perfect Stripes and Extreme Bloods? They would be LESS, desirable. What about Ghost and Sunglows? They would not exist. The Border-less gene is not only a part of the genetic make up of our Mutant Corns, it is NECESSARY to create many of them. Corn Snake Genetic Revelations, or Corn Snake Genetic Armageddon, your choice!

Photos:
Striped Topaz Sunkissed
Striped Blue Sunkissed
Striped Champagne Sunkissed (Probably, RedCoat, Red Factor, Red Blotched)