Stripes and the funky Eye thing.....

[Nanci]

A ciliary body is an anatomical structure of the eye. It just shows up more clearly in snakes with lighter irises.

 

[dave partington]

Does this mean they can't focus as well?

If it does mean they can't focus as well I can see why people try to avoid it. Yes, the animal can live a long a "normal" life but it can't see as well.
.........................

Fascinating stuff!

Cut some of your post out.

How humans "see" and how cornsnakes "see", are these different visions?
Do CS find their prey via what they see, what their tongues tell them the target is located at, a combination of the two, and how much do we (humans, from what is currently published, regardless of truly scientifically based knowledge) know?
Have you ever seen a hungry cornsnake strike at (including frozen/thawed) prey, including non-eye-color-blotched individuals, and miss their perceived target?

I realize our pets have been conditioned to feed with the coal-powered electric lights on.

Scaleless, micro-scales, stargazer, ultra, candycane via emoryii (the other amel gene), crimsin (the emoryii based ones, and how would one know), stripe.

Please define "defects".

Until someone has proven out whether individual snakes (or individuals of other species) are defects, is it wise to jump to conclusions?

 

[SMDminnesota]

Cut some of your post out.

How humans "see" and how cornsnakes "see", are these different visions?
Do CS find their prey via what they see, what their tongues tell them the target is located at, a combination of the two, and how much do we (humans, from what is currently published, regardless of truly scientifically based knowledge) know?
Have you ever seen a hungry cornsnake strike at (including frozen/thawed) prey, including non-eye-color-blotched individuals, and miss their perceived target?

I realize our pets have been conditioned to feed with the coal-powered electric lights on.

Scaleless, micro-scales, stargazer, ultra, candycane via emoryii (the other amel gene), crimsin (the emoryii based ones, and how would one know), stripe.

Please define "defects".

Until someone has proven out whether individual snakes (or individuals of other species) are defects, is it wise to jump to conclusions?

Let me start off by saying I didn't mean for that to sound aggressive. I am not saying that it is bad or it affects vision quality. I was just curious if it did.

They are two different visions. I'm just noting that there is a wiring difference in human albinism. Just making the link between a pigment trait and an eye trait. What I was saying was more speculation based on the end of the corn snakes. Snakes are clearly different than humans when it comes to their senses.

Some combination of sight and smell allows them to locate prey. When I mentioned the ball python without eyes I was hinting at this idea. It had no eye structure at all and still managed to locate it's food without a problem because of the heat pits and it's incredible sense of smell. I'm not sure how one would test vision in corn snakes. Especially since you mentioned (and I have personally witnessed) corn snakes with perfect vision missing a strike at a dead prey item. A defect in corn snake vision might not really matter to a hobbyist because they eat and breed the same as a normal visioned corn snake.

I was wondering if corn snake vision was negatively impacted by the strange iris. If it were I would consider that a preventable defect. Stargazer is clearly a defect in corn snakes. When I refer to a defect I mean something that is inheritable and disrupts quality of life. A vision defect would be significantly less noticeable than an equilibrium defect like stargazer.

I would love to know if it is linked to stripe or it's more like masque and diffused.

 

[dave partington]

Let me start off by saying I didn't mean for that to sound aggressive.

..... noting that there is a wiring difference.............

Some combination of sight and smell allows them to locate prey. When I mentioned the ball python without eyes I was hinting at this idea. It had no eye structure at all and still managed to locate it's food without a problem because of the heat pits.....................

I was wondering if corn snake vision was negatively impacted by the strange iris. If it were I would consider that a preventable defect. Stargazer is clearly a defect in corn snakes. ..............

I would love to know if it is linked to stripe or it's more like masque and diffused.

I did not take it as aggressive, and even if it had been meant that way, I'd still take it as good, sound, reasonable thought provoking conversation.

Not to confuse hypo-pigmentation (of various forms, traits, genetic simple recessives, blends therein / of, etc) in humans with albinism, never-mind hypoXalbinism in humans.... There's a couple of really excellent websites about those factors in humans, and a load of blogs and junksites featuring skewed opinions featured as factual context which are something else.

With regard to "wiring difference":
Much cornsnake policy seems to be based/biased off of this site; so I'll use micro-scale as an example in this instance; someone has a new mutation pop up from a clutch, photos are shown here, 838 views, 12 comments from various persons who express "they like it", with no posts not liking what is seen, so this is clearly a mutation worth repoducing.
"Pineapples" were liked at first (as in "pineapple upsidedown cake"), but later some people didn't like "stargazers" as they later came to be known as, so now "pineapples" are a defect as has been decided. Many persons who never owned a "pineapple" helped to decide that "stargazer" is a defect.

I am staying away from expressing a personal opinion on stargazer/pineapples.

Hey Rich, I'm hijacking your thread, because as you know that's how this place is. Someone had to. Natural Progression. FWIW (for what it's worth) I'm leaving out references to RaptorJesus and Aliens and Robots. Hopefully in another couple of pages someone will come along and set this thread back on topic.

Someone I rather like on this planet has over 1800 music CDs and can tell them all apart by their scent. The CDs are not braille labelled and my friend is completely blind. He can also tell where he is in the music store by the fragrance of the CDs in front of him. But I realize how this must read to persons who don't have blind friends, because they have made a choice about that.

Heat Pits have nothing to do with that. An individual human's perceptions are most often not reality.

Thanks for the brain fuel.

 

[Tara80]

It seems very on topic to me Dave. Those are some good points.
The logical line between acceptable and not acceptable would be "is it harmful to the animal"; although that is something we really do not know and can only speculate.
Does Stargazer hurt the snake? It doesn't know any different. I have a gazer and it seems to enjoy its' life just as much as any other snake. But that being said; it's merely an external observation and I can't experience what the snake experiences.

In the horse world, do we want to breed lethal/fatal whites? Of course not. Don't ball pythons have some strange genetic defects (something about killer bees or something) that people do not want to propagate? Don't Jags have something similar too? (going off of memory here)

 

[rich333]

Dave,

Run with it my friend.

(This post isn't directed at any one in particular.)

From a personal point of view:

I don't See Any issues, as far as quality of life, feeding response, general health of my animal with the Ocular "Difference".

So, i don't see it as a "defect" in any way. If it could be isolated and reproduced with a fair degree of regularity.... I'd breed toward the Cat-eyed look.

I think the Animal with the "Defect", is the Human race.

By thinking that A snake with a different pupil isn't "Good-enough".

By thinking a person 50lbs heavier than they should be..isn't "Good-Enough"

By thinking a Person that works in food service isn't "Good-enough"

The "Defect" is with the human race. Not the Animal's we love and care for.

 

[SMDminnesota]

It doesn't "hurt" the snake. If I were born quadriplegic I wouldn't know what "normal" is like so I would carry on. I would say more often than not that if given the choice someone born with quadriplegia would choose to not have it. **I do not want that to come off as insensitive. I am just using it as an example. **

Ball pythons have quite the list of lethal and/or mental development defects. NERD did two videos and put them on youtube. I'm shocked we haven't run into more of them in the corn snake world. I would venture to guess that there are quite a few problems they have that we can not distinguish. Inbreeding quickly leads to an increased likelihood of defects (either fatalities, mental development, physical development, etc.).

Personally I love the topic of possible unfavorable genes that inherit with favorable genes. In this hobby especially I feel it is our responsibility to keep tract of these genes. It might not always be the most fun to work with genes that have less than favorable consequences (stargazer) but be more accurate and run into fewer problems in the long term.

Has anyone specifically worked with this stripe/eye gene linkage at all?

 

[SMDminnesota]

By thinking that A snake with a different pupil isn't "Good-enough".

By thinking a person 50lbs heavier than they should be..isn't "Good-Enough"

By thinking a Person that works in food service isn't "Good-enough"

It is not preference judgement of good or bad. Knowingly breeding with physical/mental defects in a population to achieve a desired phenotype is a tad unfair.

 

[Nanci]

Um, ONE GUY said he had only seen it in stripes. That does not mean it is linked to stripes. It means the snakes he saw that had it were striped. He has not examined all the cornsnakes in the universe.

And it's just a variation- not necessarily genetic, not necessarily inheritable, it's just an observation that some unrelated snakes have it.

 

[beautifullywild77]

It is not preference judgement of good or bad. Knowingly breeding with physical/mental defects in a population to achieve a desired phenotype is a tad unfair.

How do we know it is a physical or mental defect? Or a defect for that matter?

I have a mental issues in my family. I still had kids, one of which inherited the issues. Was it unfair of me to have kids that could possible inherit these issues? I wouldn't trade my kids for anything in this world.

Maybe my example was a tad unfair. However, some view their snakes as though they were their children.

 

[rich333]

How do we know it is a physical or mental defect? Or a defect for that matter?

I have a mental issues in my family. I still had kids, one of which inherited the issues. Was it unfair of me to have kids that could possible inherit these issues? I wouldn't trade my kids for anything in this world.

Maybe my example was a tad unfair. However, some view their snakes as though they were their children.

Amen Sister! *Hugs*

 

[rich333]

It is not preference judgement of good or bad. Knowingly breeding with physical/mental defects in a population to achieve a desired phenotype is a tad unfair.

I think what we need to do at this point, is come to an agreement as to what constitutes a "Defect".

Do you see freckles as a defect or variation?

Black hair opposed to blonde defect or variation?

The old bald-headed farmer who's ear's stick out from his head a mile? defect

or simple variation?

Brown eyes versus Blue? Defect or variation?

Not trying to be argumentative.....Just trying to gain an understanding as to why you might feel this ocular variation is a defect?

 

[beautifullywild77]

LOL Rich, I inherited my great grandfathers lopsided ears. He was a bald farmer in Texas. It adds character.

 

[Tara80]

I honestly don't think we could ever quantify what is or is not a "defect" in humans. We don't 'breed' each other, or pair people for certain results/traits. We don't control what genes are ok to be passed down, or are not.
Huge difference. We DO however, play God with our reptiles.

 

[Nanci]

What about snakes with the missing frontal scale? We see that all the time. At first it was very strange. Then it was somewhat of an oddity. Now it is quite common.

 

[SMDminnesota]

Um, ONE GUY said he had only seen it in stripes. That does not mean it is linked to stripes. It means the snakes he saw that had it were striped. He has not examined all the cornsnakes in the universe.

And it's just a variation- not necessarily genetic, not necessarily inheritable, it's just an observation that some unrelated snakes have it.

At least two people in this thread have striped snakes with misshapen pupils. It was also discussed that German breeders tend to breed away from this trait which would lead me to believe that it is inheritable in some fashion. He did not mention that it was linked to stripe but I was making the leap by the title of the thread.

How do we know it is a physical or mental defect? Or a defect for that matter?

I have a mental issues in my family. I still had kids, one of which inherited the issues. Was it unfair of me to have kids that could possible inherit these issues? I wouldn't trade my kids for anything in this world.

Maybe my example was a tad unfair. However, some view their snakes as though they were their children.

We don't unfortunately. I think we'd all love to be able to talk to our pets to better understand their needs. Much like how it's frustrating when babies cry and we know 10 ways to fix it but not which one specifically. I think everyone on this site gets emotionally attached to their snakes.

That's a legitimate comparison. I would treat a snake that I bred that had physical/mental issues with the same compassion and care as the rest of my snakes. The same goes for a child. We don't breed children for a certain physical look. Snakes are bred for a certain look. If certain looks come with lethality, physical/mental development issues, or disfigurements and we breed them on purpose then we are effectively selecting bad health in our snakes.

It becomes more of a hierarchy of life quality. If I purposely breed 10,000 screwed up fruit flies in a lab to study gene inheritance no one cares. If I purposely breed 10,000 humans with muscular dystrophy more than a few people would have some ethical issues they'd like to discuss. I would like to think that pet snakes are high enough on that spectrum that we would give them the best genetic odds possible if we had the choice.

 

[rich333]

I honestly don't think we could ever quantify what is or is not a "defect" in humans. We don't 'breed' each other, or pair people for certain results/traits. We don't control what genes are ok to be passed down, or are not.
Huge difference. We DO however, play God with our reptiles.

Tara,

Sorta (Test tube babies, Sperm Banks)

but all in all, Fair enough. And Agreed.

 

[beautifullywild77]

When we are pregnant we do certain tests to see if there are defects to our fetus. In some cases you are given the option to terminate the pregnancy. I am sure there are many out there that wish they could create a child like we create morphs in snakes and reptiles.

In Spartan, any child with a defect was killed or given to the slaves. However, I agree there is a sort of God complex when creating morphs or breeding for certain traits.

 

[Tara80]

True, I had many things pass through my mind with what we are currently doing (as per what you said there Rich and Steph) and what we have, regrettably, done in the past.

 

[Crazy Colubrids]

I have a Stripe with slightly odd eyes. Not quite as odd as some but still a little funny looking.

And her mate this year. Male Ghost Stripe with normal eyes.