It's really sad when...

[Arson]

...you feel like you know more about cornsnakes than the person trying to sell them to you. I have only been reading about cornsnakes for just under a month and while I feel like I've learned a lot, I still have some things that will only be learned with experience.

I went into a local exotic pet store near me today at the advice of another forum go-er here. There are very few stores in my area (Charleston, SC) that carry reptiles, so I was excited to go. Wow, I was not very impressed at all. The place was small and cramped, hot and very smelly. I mean, I understand they're keeping lots of reptiles in there, but most of the cages were quite dirty. Fortunately, all of the pets appeared to be in good health. The gentleman only had 4 cornsnakes. Two were a breeding pair not for sale. One of the others was labeled as a "Normal het. amel."

I decided to put my newly acquired herp knowledge to work. I remembered everything I've read here and in the C.S. manual about corns and decided to see if this guy knew his stuff. I carefully examined the corn, who was obviously a normal as labled. His scales appeared normal. He didn't have any strange markings. He was shiny and appeared alert and active. His cage was suitable in size and cleanliness. His price was $40. I figured $40 didn't seem bad if he was indeed a Normal het. amel. So, I decided to ask the gentleman about the corn. He said it was an '03 hatched last year from a breeding pair he had. The snake seemed to be about 18"-20". I think that's about right for a yearling. I asked him (learned this trick from you guys here ) if I could see the parents who he said were on-site. He pointed me over to a cage that had two amel corns in it. I started to look over the parents and suddenly remembered--wait a minute, how can two amel corns produce a normal? Correct me if I'm wrong here guys, but isn't it IMPOSSIBLE for two amel corns to produce a normal?? Amelanism is recessive while the normal gene is dominant. Wouldn't amel parents only produce amel progeny? (unless other recessive traits existed, but CERTAINLY not normals, right?) I asked the guy "are you sure these are the parents?" He gave me a stern look. I said, "How can two amels produce a normal?" He replied, "How can they not?" I proceeded to give him a lesson in corn genetics and he insisted they were the parents. The parents were clearly both amel.

Either this guy was lying to me or didnt' know what the heck he was talking about--either way, he's not someone I want to do business with. If he knew his stuff and his animals looked in good health, I might be able to forgive the substandard living quarters, but this guy was extremely disappointing.

I've dealt with a local fishstore for years called Tideline Aquatics. They have extremely knowledgable staff who will spend nearly an hour with you just walking you through caring for your fish. They don't try to sell you anything you don't need and are generally everything you'd want in a fish store. If I cannot find a good reptile store in the area, and if I should become as addicted to reptiles as I am to tropical fish, I'm giving serious consideration to opening my own reputable reptile store. Of course, this would be a good 5-10 years down the road.

Thanks for your input in advance.

 

[MegF.]

I had the same experience cleanliness-wise when my husband and I decided to visit the place that sold us our amel at the reptile store. I was pretty dissapointed. They had no corns at all at that ime, and the place was pretty dirty. I would have loved to own the place and get the workers off their butts, and on the floor cleaning cages. In their defense, my amel is awesome, healthy, and a monster eater, so I can't complain there. I don't know about the genetics issue. I know that it takes two recessives to get an amel, but I'm unsure about the possibility of carrying another secondary recessive gene. Kind of like me. I'm brown eyed, but my parents are blue and green eyed. Brown is a dominant gene, but obviously one of them carried a low recessive gene for brown, while being the double recessive for blue and green. It's very complicated!! I'm sure if you posted the question on the genetics section of the board, you'd get a very complete answer.

 

[Serpwidgets]

I'm brown eyed, but my parents are blue and green eyed. Brown is a dominant gene, but obviously one of them carried a low recessive gene for brown, while being the double recessive for blue and green.

I was taught that same model back in 1984/85 in high skrewl Biology. However, there are genes at 3 or more loci that control eye color in humans, so the old model of a simple-recessive doesn't apply to eye color anymore.

Apparently it is not super-uncommon for brown eyed kids to come from blue eyed parents, and green eyes is similarly recessive to brown, so your case should also be quite possible and not uncommon. (I also knew someone in high skrewl who had one green eye, one brown. Put that one into the calculators, hehe.)

Further reading: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=inheritance+blue+eyes

 

[Arson]

Serp is right, I was nearly about to post something about there being only 2 eyes colors....blue and brown and everything else is a variation, but Googled it first.

Things have indeed changed.

 

[MegF.]

Well, that tells you how long ago I was in bio. So, is it possible for two amels to have normals? Those of you who are genetic experts? I still haven't unraveled all the combos yet!