Mystery Ghost *female*

[SODERBERGD]

Probably correct . . .

I might be out in left field, but if the original bloodreds were glades rat/corn hybrids wouldn't they look like normal corns after so much breeding back to them? All the outcrossing has changed coloration but the patterning effect remains the same (to my knowledge). Wouldn't the reduced pattern effect be minimal by now if that was an effect of the glades influence?

Yes, I'd say what we're seeing is mostly a recessive trait in the bloods and not the obvious affects of hybridization. However, could there be a synergistic affect from the original genetic union? I doubt it, but the parallels were too obvious to completely ignore. Obviously there is nothing recessive about the genetics of the yellow and everglades rats. lol.

 

[Joejr14]

Sure is scary, isn't it? They both start out heavily blotched. Many of the bloods have the quadra linear stripes like some obsoleta rats. They both drastically change color from neonate to adult. They both have uncheckered bellies (not all bloodreds) and fading lateral patterns (if any). Of course, I refer to the yellow rats since the original bloodred stock is so far out of the everglade's range, but the parallels are impossible to ignore. No other corn morph does that metamorphic change so drastically. Few (if any) other corn morphs show phenotypic markers in the F1s like the bloods. If we look more closely at some of the physiological distinctions of these species, we might even see other parallels. I haven't looked closely at scale size, shape and texture. Anyway, if we start doubting the purity of some of these oddballs that show up now and then, consider how much bloods behave like the yellow rats. I don't think we'd have to stretch our imaginations to presume that 500,000 years ago, perhaps none of the serpents today even existed. Not in color and patten anyway. Selective breeding isn't limited to the same species. A hybrid can give rise to the next successful serpent out there in situations of climatic change. These "freaks" we see occasionally could be throwbacks to those times, but we'll probably never know now that the human element is poluting the equation.

Don, you're getting philosophical now!

You do make a very interesting point about the bloodreds. I'm trying to think of a corn that goes through that much of a color change---and I'm coming up blank.

Thinking about this, don't most rat snakes (black, yellow, gray, and everglades) start off looking totally different from their adult counterparts?

I want to say that yellow rats start off gray looking, and then become yellow and develop their lines, no?

Here's a picture of a hatchling/juvie everglades, which shows exactly what you're talking about.

So, the questions is---why are the bloodreds the only corns to act this way?

That, is something that unfortunately nobody is ever going to be able to prove, one way or another. The problem is that everglades habitat overlays with the yellow rats and they intergrade, as do the gray and yellow rats in northern florida.

My guess is that whenever the keys split off of florida, you had some confined population of everglades rats, and corns, hell, maybe even yellow rats. That really is the only thing that makes sense when you sit down and think about it. A confined population of naturally intergrading snakes will eventually just form a new species---and there you have Upper Keys corns. It's a nice theory, but again, totally unproveable.

Still though, there's so many 'looks' of bloodreds that really do scream rat snake, and not corn snake. But again, then you get the problem that everglades rats aren't native to really any area above Lake Okeechobee--so that conflicts with the area where bloodreds were found.

So after all of that, where do we end up? Right back at the beginning, with more questions than answer. But hey, what do you expect? Isn't that what's so fun about this?

 

[Kevin S.]

how about this

I gave it some more thought and came up with another thought which may or may not make sense. Bloodreds are still comparatively new in corns (though they've been available for 20 years or so), but they're still one of the pricier single trait morphs so anyone who has one will likely breed it with another bloodred somewhere down the line.

As far as outcrossing, most of the hets are bred back to bloodreds or het bloodreds but they carry lavendar, anery, or whatever trait they were outcrossed for. Now try thinking of it this way...if the original bloodreds were say half glades rat, then breeding to a corn would dilute this influence and the offspring would look mostly corn, but still retain evidence of the glades. Breed two of these together and the glades influence would be more prevalent or at least more persistent within the clutch.

Could this help explain the way the bloodred trait affects the appearance of "hets?" They have belly checkers, but they're normally incomplete, they have reduced side patterning and abnormal head patterns and when bred to another bloodred or het, the differences are even more drastic. It didn't make much sense to me before, but after applying the idea to bloodreds as hypothetical glades crosses, the views in this thread make more sense to me. Read through it a little if you've got some time: http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=729527,729527

 

[kathylove]

I saw some of the first bloods that Eddie Leach produced 20 years ago...

back when they were only a few generations removed from the wild. They tended to be very slender bodied snakes and were not especially large for corns. They produced large numbers of tiny, tiny babies.

Although some of the points about the color and pattern similarities with obsoleta rats made by Don S. and others are interesting and maybe even weird, nothing about the original body shape, size, and lack of robust appearance of adults and babies ever led me to suspect any kind of cross in the original founders. Even back then, I did notice the glades color "look" to the animals, but as mentioned, glades rats are a LONG way away from north Florida, and it is rare to find glades rats as red as the original bloods.

Now that the bloods have been diluted (for good reason!) with other corns, they often appear more robust and more orange than the originals, which makes them seem more glades-like than they appeared 20 years ago.

 

[Menhir]

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=729527,729527

Did I get the wrong link or what excactly is the relation from the Blood - Everglades discussion to AngolaBalls and that the breeder seems not to be able to relaize the 50% notation
:santa:

 

[Kevin S.]

Just thought it was interesting the way he thought it was ok to say that the offspring are more or less one snake than the other. Although they are 50% of each in that case, some appear much more angolan or ball. I was just saying something similar could be going on with bloodreds if they were crossed with glades, but I think Kathy stomped out that theory. So I thought I was making some sense, but clearly something very different is at work.

 

[Menhir]

Ah ok, I understand.
I see it the way that one guy stated. It just makes sense with hybrids to say Angola x Ball is 50/50, no matter what they look like. You can't find a criteria to judge the part that Ball takes in the snake or Angola, the percentage says just something about the different species being involved.
So, saying some are 50/50, others are 75/25 and so on is useless in my opinion. (when we speak about clutchmates...)

 

[Kevin S.]

I agree completely

That would be a very subjective way of classifying snakes if they were to say "It's about....oh 60% corn and 40% glades I'd say."

 

[Vinman]

joe read the post carefully I never said I thought that evergladis rat are in the rosy. I was saying rosys I think are; ( I dont care what the normclature of herps says I think rosys are a corn crossed to some extinct rat snake species or corn subspecies.) there are no everglades rats in the keys the ratsnake that comes from the keys is E.O.Deckerti. It would be impossable that either ratsnake crossed with a corn would make rosys The ratsnakes are to long and heavy body. rosys are small and slender. NO bloodreds are a pure corn from hastings Fl. If not most of the decendants came from hastings but it is a pure corn that is the origanal stock. the bloods in the hobby to day are almost all out crossed excpet for a few specimans and Mark bells coloney

 

[Carlos]

I always think that the bloodred lines have some rosy blood in them, all the corns that we catch in the wild from the lake up north are super good eaters of pinkies as they hatch. More toward the south they become=ing more finiky(SP) eaters. In the trail breedings that I do with the Bloodred and Key corns(Rosy) in the first generation I always have babies similar to bloodred including a whole plaint belly and those babies are apain in the neck eaters. I don't know about the Everglades rat as a bad eater either even when they are wild. So I'm not sure what really is the Bloodred line.
I have some questions still without answers.
The wild bloodred line are still been catch?
Why some of the outcross Rosys have the same belly pattern as the bloodred outcross?
They both are a pain in the neck feeders(blood original line and rosys) and only want anoles as feed.
The original bloodred line hatchlings resemble the rosy hatchlins in size (small hatchlings)

If some of the experiensed breeder have some answer I really appreciate they imput.

 

[Vinman]

the belly of the orangial blood stock that is the normals from hastings have a reduced to allmost a plane belly the ones that I seen with my own eyes and held in my hands hard a row of dots on each side of the belly just like a rosy. The top of the snake had big blotches on deep red ,redorange bachround with very little contrast between blocth and body and were 4 1/2 feet long. I have seen this belly pattren in other wild corns in fl. and 2 okeetee corns one roadkill and one F2 about 18 years ago that I hatch from F1 okeetees that I bought off a guy that I know goes down to catch his own in jasper Co.

 

[Joejr14]

joe read the post carefully I never said I thought that evergladis rat are in the rosy. I was saying rosys I think are; ( I dont care what the normclature of herps says I think rosys are a corn crossed to some extinct rat snake species or corn subspecies.) there are no everglades rats in the keys the ratsnake that comes from the keys is E.O.Deckerti. It would be impossable that either ratsnake crossed with a corn would make rosys The ratsnakes are to long and heavy body. rosys are small and slender. NO bloodreds are a pure corn from hastings Fl. If not most of the decendants came from hastings but it is a pure corn that is the origanal stock. the bloods in the hobby to day are almost all out crossed excpet for a few specimans and Mark bells coloney

Vin, with all due respect, you're wrong. E. Obsoleta rossalleni are most certainly found in the Upper Keys, at least according to every website I've seen.

"Range: In Florida, it is found in the Everglades region from Lake Okeechobee south to the tip of the peninsula and into the upper keys. In this area, it also intergrades (interbreeds) with the yellow rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata). Adults of these intergrade specimens may be yellow-orange with faint blotches. This subspecies is not found outside of Florida."

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/herpetology/fl-guide/Elapheorossalleni.htm

 

[Carlos]

Joe, you are right. We catch Everglades rats on the South Florida tip and in the Upper Keys, we catch the rosy in the Upper keys as well.

 

[Serpwidgets]

What is the scoop with the saddles then?

My girl ghost has 47 to her tail tip, I'm going from the pic of her since she is still digesting. I will put it here for you all again, so you can see. It was pretty funny, when I got her hubby asked why she had so many and I said "huh"? I never gave it a 2nd thought. :shrugs:

Again, if you count all the way to the tip of the tail, you will get a very different number from what you get counting to the vent. We'd probably get more like 60-70+ on Carol's oddballs if we counted them that way.

I got ~35 head to vent on yours, which is well within the normal range for corns. You may have others with longer saddles and even lower counts, but this anery by no means has an unusually high saddle count, at least based on my experience.

 

[Vinman]

carlos so where are the E.O.Deckerti come from since they are called keyrats The everglades rats in the upper keys is a intergrades between everglades and E.O.Deckerti . E.O.Deckerti has more of a red color and everglades is more orange red . a lot of the ratsnakes in the lower keys have a faint gray blotched pattren. also the rosey in the lower were never tought of being pure rosys they were allways called intergrads by top collectors. the good rosys come from the last 3 lower keys the best came from key west but that population has been ruined from all the landscaping and stoeaway corns in the plants that came from the main land.

 

[Serpwidgets]

Keep in mind that if the giant robust corns from the Hunt Club were used to exclusively stock the keys thousands of generations ago, we would not be seeing "Okeetee" corns on the Keys islands today. Smaller environments tend to support fewer species, and the selection pressures caused by such an environment tend to "micronize" the species that are there. So the fact that keys corns are not big like glades rats would not exclude them from having contributed to the "rosy" gene pool that far back.

As far as bloodreds exhibiting the pattern that fades from blotches into longitudinal stripes, what I've seen in my own "very outcrossed" line is that the diffusion gene itself seems to play little to no role in this process. What I mean is, bloodreds do not fade because of the diffusion gene, they fade because of what has been selected for by nature/man in those particular snakes.

But none of this means that this had to have come from another species. Ratsnakes are all very similar and built almost entirely out of the same parts. IMO it should not be surprising to find that corns are capable of sporting reduced or absent checkering on the belly, or a pattern that fades from blotches to stripes, even in the total absence of hybridization/intergradation.

 

[Vinman]

Serp you may find it strange I talked to a few hunters and collectors from SC and Ga they all tell me that the corns on the islands are larger than on the main land some of the islands are highley populated and some of the main land that they hunt is very desolate. go figure

 

[Serpwidgets]

Key word being "tend." A lot of factors go into determining the "richness" of an economy/ecology, what it can support, and what size is optimal, so it's not a hard and fast rule.

I'm not really familiar with the geography there in SC and GA. I wonder how often genes are exchanged between the mainland and the islands.

 

[Vinman]

all costal corns on the main land and island populations are more larger and more richley colored than the inland population that does not meem that you cant get a screamer from deep inland

 

[Joejr14]

carlos so where are the E.O.Deckerti come from since they are called keyrats The everglades rats in the upper keys is a intergrades between everglades and E.O.Deckerti . E.O.Deckerti has more of a red color and everglades is more orange red . a lot of the ratsnakes in the lower keys have a faint gray blotched pattren. also the rosey in the lower were never tought of being pure rosys they were allways called intergrads by top collectors. the good rosys come from the last 3 lower keys the best came from key west but that population has been ruined from all the landscaping and stoeaway corns in the plants that came from the main land.

Well, from what I've found doing a quick google search, it seems as if E. O. Dockerti is listed under E. O. quadrivittata.

Another website said:

"Deckert's Ratsnake (E. o. deckerti). A problematic form often called the Key's ratsnake. Their range is usually considered to be from Key Largo south to Lower Matacumbe. Their dorsal color and pattern varies from a tannish-yellow like the yellow ratsnake to a deep orange red like the everglades ratsnake, typically with four stripes together with blotches which are sometimes very boldly pronounced."

That made it seem like they're considering it a wild type of Everglades ratsnake.


:shrugs: