What is the deal with Cinder?!

I'm just curious if folks are interested in discussing Cinder, ...specifically, if anyone has opinions, or even better, evidence, that Cinder is in fact, incomplete dominant rather than recessive. This has been discussed in a couple places online previously, but I thought it might be interesting to see if anyone out there has anything new to add.

Personally, I have seen many heterozygous Cinder that clearly had phenotypic features that could not be explained by the presence of other gene mutations. I'm curious if others have had similar, or different experiences.

Thanks in advance for contributing to the discussion. Photos that demonstrate your points are always welcome

Perhaps the ancestry from Florida Keys stock could have an influence? Corn snakes from the Keys normally seemed kind of different from the mainlander stock to me.

:eatpointeGood point Rich.
But I’m on the fence on this. I’ve noticed by looking at vms, morph market, and my own hets that many times I can pick out the het cinders just by looking at the blotch edges (uneven rough edges) but Not with a 100% accuracy but probably 70% accuracy.
Maybe not as obvious as a incomplete dominant trait should be.
It’s kinda like het caramels corns.....the yellowish/orangey color in the hets could be from selectively breeding the most yellow caramels? or maybe a slightly noticeable incomplete dominant trait?
Actually, I’m not on the fence on this. Just over 50 years old and don’t really care anymore!

As for the Caramels, the original normal colored female that the line came from was one in a batch of wild caughts that caught my eye because of that unusual coloration. The original intent was to breed amelanism into her to see what the amels would look like with that influence. So who knows? Could have always been more than one gene lurking in there. That particular area seemed to be a relative hotbed for odd genetic material in the corn snakes. From North Port down to Lehigh Acres and over to Pine Island on the west coast of Florida seemed like the Bermuda Triangle of genetic oddities for corns.

Cinder (I still like "Ashy" :laugh: ) was another pure luck thing coming from a wild caught female from a guy who lived in the keys. No idea of any sort of exact location for it, however. But I said all I know about the origination here anyway -> https://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145919

I can say that a sunkissed het cinder does have a change of head stamp over sunkissed not het cinder about 75% of the time.

Thanks Rich for posting a link to the history of Ashy/Cinder.

I have seen Het Cinders that were quite obviously "Het Cinder", based on some of the markers described above, and some that were much more subtly Het Cinder. IMO, the markers for Het Cinder can be masked by the presence of other mutations (e.g., Sunkissed, Motley, etc...). This is certainly true for some other mutations. Buf for example, is dominant, but so variable at times I can hardly tell which hatchlings are displaying the phenotype. I don't think we should discount the possibility that Cinder is perhaps incomplete dominant because it does not consistently "shine through" when combined with other mutations. Hopefully some additional folks out there who have worked with Cinder, perhaps not in combo with too many other mutations, will chime-in

Honestly, I think if het Palmetto can be considered incomplete dominant (where some of the hets are very hard to distinguish from non hets, especially if another homozygous morph is involved), then cinder should be considered incomplete dominant too. I have a much easier time spotting het cinders than I do het palmettos! (But that could be my lack of experience with palmettos).

With caramel, I don't think it's incomplete dominant, but I do think most caramels have a dominant, or incomplete dominant, 'yellow factor' that can often be seen in het caramels.

Not to get too far off the Cinder topic here, but for what it's worth, I tend to agree with Olivia regarding Caramel being recessive. Lately, I have been noticing the degree of variation in corns labeled Caramel on MorphMarket. My eye sees at least 2 distinct "flavors" of Caramel for sale these days... ones that have brownish ground colors with essentially orange blotches (they essentially look like Buf), and then Caramels with "silvery" backgrounds and distinctly yellowish blotches. I suspect some of that variability is natural, and some is perhaps owing to Miami lines that were crossed with Caramel to lighten the background color(s), which I personally much prefer over the more orange ones.

And if by "Yellow Factor" you mean the potentially dominant mutation that supposedly originated in Joe Pierce's collection (i.e., his "Yellow Disease"), and that some of us are calling "Yellowjacket", I also agree. Although I have seen far fewer corns in total than Rich or a few others that frequent this site, I have 3 "Yellowjackets" and they do not look like any Caramel, or any other corns I've ever seen for that matter. It will be interesting to see what results if they reproduce next year

I agree with Olivia on the het palmetto versus het cinder.

I don't have any first hand knowledge on the Cinder issue so maybe I shouldn't offer input, just lurk, lol. But I've been working with Caramels for a long time now. There are definitely different Caramel looks, and I think Keys influence is a big part of it. Before I had to take a few steps back from breeding much for a while, I was working on selecting for what I thought of as silver and gold Caramels, with the silver background color and more golden saddles. That was before the term Miami Caramel was coined, which is a fine enough term but way overused. Most Caramel babies have grey background, after all.

Anyway, looping back (I had a point, I think lol), whether it's easily pointed out to someone else or not, whether it's caused by an associated allele or what, het Caramels are so often said to be identifiable, and to a practiced eye they are. But - devil's advocate here - it may be that although those with whatever "noticeable" traits are correctly IDed as het Caramel, there may be others who are het Caramel without said differences. That is, I think, the logic for Yellow Jacket, Yellow Disease, etc. Might something similar be going on with Cinder? Thoughts?


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Caryl said:

I don't have any first hand knowledge on the Cinder issue so maybe I shouldn't offer input, just lurk, lol. But I've been working with Caramels for a long time now. There are definitely different Caramel looks, and I think Keys influence is a big part of it. Before I had to take a few steps back from breeding much for a while, I was working on selecting for what I thought of as silver and gold Caramels, with the silver background color and more golden saddles. That was before the term Miami Caramel was coined, which is a fine enough term but way overused. Most Caramel babies have grey background, after all.

Anyway, looping back (I had a point, I think lol), whether it's easily pointed out to someone else or not, whether it's caused by an associated allele or what, het Caramels are so often said to be identifiable, and to a practiced eye they are. But - devil's advocate here - it may be that although those with whatever "noticeable" traits are correctly IDed as het Caramel, there may be others who are het Caramel without said differences. That is, I think, the logic for Yellow Jacket, Yellow Disease, etc. Might something similar be going on with Cinder? Thoughts?


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As for the highlighted portion above, the Caramel line did not come from Keys stock. At least not as far as I can imagine. The originator female was a wild caught animal that I purchased from a Mom and Pop pet shop in Cape Coral, Florida, which is on the western outskirts of Ft. Myers. So the presumption is that it was a locally caught animal from somewhere nearby.

Rich, Did the original Caramel look more like the Silver and Yellow ("Miami Caramel") morph, or did it look more like the brown and orange variety (not sure if there is a name for that line/morph)?

Hi Caryl, I don't have much direct experience with Yellowjacket, just the 3 individuals that will hopefully be mature enough to reproduce next Spring. I can say definitively that they look nothing like the Het Caramels I've seen (much brighter to my eye, and practically borderless). I'll post a photo below (apologies for photo quality; I really need to spend a day photographing all of my snakes . As for the history of Yellowjacket, what I know is only what Sarah Mohr wrote in her book (and possibly a video; can't remember), which I'm assuming you guys have read as well. I don't have that book here with me at the moment but my memory is that Joe Pierce said that "Yellow Disease" was affecting the coloration of progeny from many pairings, including some that did not involve Caramel (someone please correct me if that is in error . I think the working hypothesis was that Yellowjacket might be dominant, and that is why it has been suggested that it might be the same thing as Buf. That would certainly be interesting to test, if it has not been done. ...and then there is Toffee...

SnakeSmithS said:

Rich, Did the original Caramel look more like the Silver and Yellow ("Miami Caramel") morph, or did it look more like the brown and orange variety (not sure if there is a name for that line/morph)?

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Back in May of 1985, my wife and I were vacationing in southwest Florida and happened upon a pet shop in Cape Coral. They had an aquarium with about a dozen or so wild caught corn snakes in it and one in particular caught my eye. It was a female and the coloration was a rather unusual straw colored ground color with reddish-brown blotches. I just thought it might make a rather interesting looking amelanistic so I purchased it to take home.

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SOURCE: https://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145921

hypnoctopus said:

Honestly, I think if het Palmetto can be considered incomplete dominant (where some of the hets are very hard to distinguish from non hets, especially if another homozygous morph is involved), then cinder should be considered incomplete dominant too. I have a much easier time spotting het cinders than I do het palmettos! (But that could be my lack of experience with palmettos).

With caramel, I don't think it's incomplete dominant, but I do think most caramels have a dominant, or incomplete dominant, 'yellow factor' that can often be seen in het caramels.

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This is my answer to all of the above as well. I've definitely seen many het palms who do not look like anything special. While many (maybe 75%) do look a bit more "hypo-ish", it is not always obvious. Same with Cinder. I've been able to pick out het cinders, again about 75% of the time.

I also agree with the Caramel comment. I've been hatching caramels and het caramels every single year for the entirety of my time in the hobby... it is not obvious who is het caramel even 50% of the time. Sometimes I get the "yellow jacket" looking snakes, that end up NOT being het caramel, and i end up ruining a full year of a caramel project because I was relying on that.
I've also worked with Yellow Jacked since about 2016 - that IS dominant in my opinion, or maybe also incomplete-dominant. I still don't know if it's the same as/different from Buf/Toffee, but my line came straight from Joe Pierce who has confirmed the ones I have came out of his "yellow disease" line (that has since been renamed yellow jacked).

scmartin27 said:

This is my answer to all of the above as well. I've definitely seen many het palms who do not look like anything special. While many (maybe 75%) do look a bit more "hypo-ish", it is not always obvious. Same with Cinder. I've been able to pick out het cinders, again about 75% of the time.

I also agree with the Caramel comment. I've been hatching caramels and het caramels every single year for the entirety of my time in the hobby... it is not obvious who is het caramel even 50% of the time. Sometimes I get the "yellow jacket" looking snakes, that end up NOT being het caramel, and i end up ruining a full year of a caramel project because I was relying on that.
I've also worked with Yellow Jacked since about 2016 - that IS dominant in my opinion, or maybe also incomplete-dominant. I still don't know if it's the same as/different from Buf/Toffee, but my line came straight from Joe Pierce who has confirmed the ones I have came out of his "yellow disease" line (that has since been renamed yellow jacked).

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PS sorry for typos. I havent had coffee yet XD I mean yellow jackeT lol

Sarah, when it comes to Caramel, if it's yellow jacket that's creating a "het caramel" look (whether they're actually het or not), do you also notice a difference between the homozygous caramels - ones with yellow jacket and ones without?

Is Cinder a form of anerythryism?
by definition, the lack of red being what defines any form of an anery to be an anery. Not to be confused of course with Anery with a capital A, which we also know as "Anery A".
And by definition of anery, caramel lacks red, so caramel is a form of anery.
Ignoring all of the gene combinations of cinder, aka wrenches in the gears or hets to throw off breeding trials, I've always had a fondness for the cinder line, some folks long ago called it "Anery Z".
And then there's that funny odd thing where the first cinders back around 2003 had red in the centers of the saddle borders, so is straight original cinder a form of anery?

So back in the day when some bred cinder X orange candy cane amels, and the f2's revealed 'peppermint', where was the pink coming from? the amel line contained orange and white, not red and white=pink, hence the wildcard of cinder.

I don't think cinder is a type of anery because it definitely has red tones, even with no other genes added. But it may be a type of hypo-erythrism, reduced red tones.