I seem to always miss the "morph" in the wild!

Black rats aren't bad at all. Im more partial to grey rats myself. Still very odd looker there.

That thing is beautiful!! Sign me up for a hatchling lol

You could always cross this one to a corn and breed the siblings back to parents at same time breeding sibling to sibling to create some corns with some beautiful color patterns if you got lucky with this one. Outcrossing has been utilized to bring in desired traits in other animals by breeders. How many times do you have to inbreed though before you can consider it a cornsnake again though? That is the real question. Personally, I believe that after 4-7 backcrosses to a pure cornsnake that we should consider it a cornsnake again.

So, yeah, I'd have to agree with anyone thinking that this is one heck of an easy way to come up with some truly sweet calico corns or corn hybrids depending on how many generations in you are.

Originally Posted by Carpe Serpentis

How many times do you have to inbreed though before you can consider it a cornsnake again though? That is the real question. Personally, I believe that after 4-7 backcrosses to a pure cornsnake that we should consider it a cornsnake again.

Most people would never consider it a "pure" cornsnake ever again.

Agreed...it'll never be a corn again.

Originally Posted by Nanci

Most people would never consider it a "pure" cornsnake ever again.

Sure it will, just as soon as the first person forgets to label it properly.

Even breeders of purebred animals, dogs, etc. are allowed to breed another animal from outside the breed into their purebred animal and have it registered. Some purebreds have what is called an open stub book registry where outcrossing is accepted such as the Jack Russell Terrier, Wetterhoun. Cornsnakes interbreed with other snakes besides corns in the wild. The progeny of those matings are absorbed back into the genetic mixing bowl like a drop of red food coloring into an ocean of blue. The distinctions on what to call pure or not pure is purely a human trait and not one that actually exists in the wild. The idea of purity of species or races was once held to be important among humans as well. The problem is that when a species or race as defined by man interbreeds with another species or race at the boundaries of their environment you will always find mixes or blends of traits of both species/races/ethnicities etc. and the blending will occur over time and distance to such an extent that you can not determine a pure species from a hybrid. The long and short of it is that you can not stop hybrids from happening in nature nor can you stop then from happening where a human intercessor is assisting in the hybridizing of those species. The fact is that these calico or palmetto style colorings can be achieved with a greater rapidity simply by using these closely related cousins as breeding stock. A mediocre hybridizer could then simply breed back to pure corn until no one could tell the difference between his corn any number of wild caught corns. The first cross back to a cornsnake already produces a 50% pure stock. The second cross back to a cornsnake produces a 75% pure cornsnake. Your third cross you have 87.5% purity. By your 4th cross you have 93.75% purity. This is accepted as pure by many breeders.... However, you could go further and breed back to pure corn again for 96.875 purity in your 5th cross. If you don't think a hybridizer would not resort to such methods to get a new phenotype to show in his or her progeny.....

What about peacocks???

There's a reason why merle chihuahuas and their relatives are not able to registered or are allowed as show dogs:

Because no matter that they look entirely chi at this point, the merle gene came from outside the breed. They are not pure chihuahuas and it is unethical for people to claim that. If I wanted to breed black labs and I bought two purebred black labs... and they had puppies that were parti-colors, I'd be ticked off.

When I buy a corn snake, I want a *corn* snake. I want, to the best of the breeder's knowledge, to have something that has not had intentional non-corn crosses in its ancestry. To make them look 'pure' and then label them as such is also what is known as "lying".