More supporting data . . .
First, thanks to those who support me. Even though this subject is not a contest for support or popularity, I appreciate you. I meant what I said about respecting criticism, but it should be based on facts, instead of prejudices.
Since no-one I know was around when the Tesseras or the Palmetto were created/discovered/captured, I think such snakes that defy convention (what species am I?) should initially be treated as "none of the above", pending investigation. This way, we go back to square ONE, as if it were just captured, and the only way to figure out what it is requires
keying it out. At this point, it shouldn't matter what someone is swearing it is or is not. We should weigh the physical features of the usual suspect species against others, and after eliminating all species it CANNOT be, we're hopefully left with ONE that it MUST be. This is the very reason for Taxonomy. Describing relationship between organisms, based on the degree of their similarities. This cannot be properly done via photographs on the Internet.
One also has to also keep in mind that there is one
HUUUGE factor in all this that dictates it most definitely IS a genuine cornsnake, and that is that the normal hets Don produced right off the bat are simply 100%
CORNSNAKES!. There is nothing even romotely suggesting in the phenotype/morphology that there is even a tiny hint of obsoletus complex involved. They wouldn't look anything close to this so soon if there was any deception involved. It just won't happen..
~Doug
Doug, your post reminded me of a very important characteristic I did not address; hatchling size. The average size of the Palmetto homozygotes (and their non-mutant siblings) has been a mere 4 grams. Since 1973, when I hatched my first rat snake
and my first corn snake, I have never hatched a rat snake that weighed only 4 grams (unless there was something wrong with it). In fact, that's even small for a corn.
Since I bred the Palmetto to a corn snake to get the F1 heterozygotes in 2009, if the Palmetto were a different species, the babies should have displayed
Hybrid Vigor, in the form of robust babies. Not that all Hybrid pairings result in the exhibition of Hybrid Vigor, but in my 39 years of breeding snakes, I've personally never seen F1 heterozygotes from two separate species that were anything but bigger than the average babies of either species. The only exception (albeit rare) is seen in
some creamsicles, but only after more than four or five consecutive generations of in-breeding or back-crossing toward corns. F1 through F4+ predominantly yield large and robust babies. Not until many generations of diluting the Emory's Rat Snake genes (via promotion of corn genes) do we see a reversal in neonatal hatch size, closer to the average size of corns - and that is still uncommon. Hence, it's compelling evidence that the Palmetto is not a species other than
P.guttatus. I once again stress that I am not campaigning to persuade people to believe that it's a corn snake, as much as I am expecting rational people to acknowledge physical features, instead of photographs and opinions based on political bias (i.e.
All Americans are liars, so it cannot be a corn snake). In the final analysis, without DNA to assist us, science may satisfactorily determine the species via anatomical, morphological, and perhaps physiological attributes. If size, behavior, and scalation are not enough, I have just one more card up my sleeve. I cannot tip my hand until the release of my book, but I believe I know how to reveal the last piece of the puzzle, toward proving the species. A final test this breeding season should solve the mystery (until DNA gets to weigh in). I'm not implying this is a borderline case. I have no reservations calling this a corn snake, but in the interest of satisfying those who believe (
just from seeing pictures) that it's not a corn, I'll perform all the usual tests, AND I have one that no-one published. I'm not trying to bait anyone into buying the book when it is published, just to find out. I will reveal the results of this tests before the end of the summer, even if the book is not in print. And by saying that, it means I will reveal the results, regardless of the slant they put on this investigation.
Regarding those who say there is not yet enough evidence, consider this. I don't know a scientist in the world who would dare judge the taxonomy of a new species, by only seeing pictures of it. Camera angles can distort the rendering of features; as can lighting. If this snake had feet or feathers, I'd be the first to say it's not a corn, but in so much as
P.guttatus and
P.obsoletus are so similar -
in the absence of color and pattern - photographs are not a reliable vehicle for comparison.
The original male is showing signs of an impending shed, so he may not make it to the upcoming NARBC Expo, but I will have several of his Palmetto grandkids on display at the NARBC in Arlington, Texas, next week, February 11th and 12th.
Don
