anyone have pics of ultra ghosts?

[chausies]

I have seen these advertised but most of the advertisers do not offer pics. I have searched online and had trouble finding a clear pic of one. How do you know (or reasonably suspect) when you have an ultra ghost (aside from test breeding)? I have a pale ghost (not motley) and I am wondering what type of hypo she has, and I wonder how different ultra ghosts appear in comparison to her. I will attach a pic of her here for comparison. I also have an ice ghost (pic not yet available) that is only a shade or 2 paler than this girl. I bought this girl at the daytona expo last year. The breeder had a few yearlings that were even paler than my girl is now, and the males were pinker in color (I am still kicking myself for not picking up 1 or 2 more of their snakes.)

 

[Serpwidgets]

Simply put, there is no way to know without test breeding. Especially once these get more and more mixed into typical-looking corn lines, visual IDs are going to become impossible.

For example, at Daytona this year there was an ultramel anery adult that could easily have passed for a ghost. (Ultramels can accumulate pigment and, as adults, look nowhere near as extreme as they did at hatching.) We talked extensively with the breeder, both this year and last year, and it's pretty obvious (based on the hatchlings his pair has produced) that the parents are ultramel anerys. The clutch clearly (to Hurley and I) consisted of ultra anerys, ultramel anerys, and snows. Everyone else kept coming by telling us someone (that same guy) was selling "fake" ultramel anerys that were "obviously ghosts" when in fact they were ultra and ultramel anerys.

If you want to get ultra-stuff, you have to:
1-understand the whole "ultramel" thing yourself,
(so you know what questions to ask and what answers to expect)
2-then find a breeder who you can trust, and
3-who understands what is going on with their stock, and
4-who has actually test bred his own stock.

 

[princess]

Good points. I'm looking at picking up a 1.0 ultamel het anery baby at a show in 2 days but this snake is the most scarey purchace I've ever made (in snake keeping). I trust the guy selling but to fork out a big wad of cash for a little worm that's eaten 3 times is frightening!

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

That is one BEAUTIFUL ghost! Who produced her? I'd love to see that coloration in stripes...

 

[chausies]

it's a shame that they are not more visually distinct. Hopefully selective breeding will make them more distinguishable from hypo A.

I do plan to test breed my ghost girl to at least reduce the # of possibilities of which hypo she has. I have a hypo stripe boy that I am reasonably certain is hypo A. I don't have any ultras (or hets, that I know of) and I don't have any amel male corns, but I do have some het for amel (to test for ultra.) But my ultimate goal for her is breeding with a bloodred - I think she will make spectacular ghost bloods in the F2 cross.

And to blckkat - I bought her from Susan Sentman (Ssnakes) at the daytona expo last year. I am not sure if Susan bred her or purchased her for resale from another breeder (there was a guy with Susan that knew more about the corns than she did.) I do know that ALL of the ghosts she had were amazing. I wish I have picked up one or 2 of the yearlings she had. I found these snakes at the show early on, but I wanted to check out all the tables to be sure that this ghost was the best there and that I did not find something I wanted more. I had a set budget, I think I bought 3 snakes total there. I found no other ghosts at the show that even came close to the ones on susan's table (I may have missed a few booths because I had my son with me, who was only 2 at the time and getting very impatient.) I returned to susan's table just in time to see a guy buying up most of her ghost corns. Since he bought the yearlings that I liked the most, I thought I'd take a chance with the hatchlings - I just picked one hoping that it would turn out as nice as the older ones.