Type my snake!

[Joje126]

Help me, is he a hypo!?

This is my four year old male, whom I believe to be a hypomelanistic. He looks pretty yellow here, but is slightly more orange than this picture shows. (Im working on getting some better pictures posted - done)

I know the previous owner of this snakes parents, and although he is not the most reliable source, he said the mother was normal and the father was amelanistic.

I sent the picture to Rich and havent heard back from him yet. I realize he is pretty busy so I was hoping that someone else may be able to offer some kind of help.

:cheers:

 

[Taceas]

M Y S N A K E


Tada, I typed it! I knew those typing classes would come in handy.

From that really poor quality picture, he does look kind of hypo-ish to me. Doesn't have any real black that I can tell around the saddles. However a belly shot would help, it should show solid black checkers, or faded bronze colored checkers.

However for him to be hypo, both of the parents would have to be het for hypo. If you were to breed a straight normal to a straight amelanistic, you'd get 100% het for amel.

Regardless, he does seem to have nice coloration to him. And if he turns out to be normal, nothin wrong with that. Normals are one of my favorites. =)

 

[Joje126]

belly shot

I edited out the bad picture and put in some new ones that were taken this morning with a digital camera. This second shot is a full belly shot so you can see the coloring there. Its mostly dark, but there are a few orange blotches here and there.

:wavey:

 

[CornCrazy]

It's either a hypo or a very yellow (and light) normal. The only way you will ever know for certain is to do vreeding trials. You will have to breed him to a hypo or a het hypo to see if you get hypos.

 

[Serpwidgets]

M Y S N A K E

Heh heh! Apparently I'm not the only one with that sense of humor.

Based on both shots, it's a toss-up. You can't be sure from the belly or the borders... I've got a normal (het ghost) and a normal (het hypo, motley, anery, amel) that both look similar to that, except they have a bit more bronzing on the belly checkers. Since the breeder didn't know, breeding trials are the only way you're gonna know for sure.

 

[Rich Z]

Lacking any concrete evidence to the contrary, in cases like this I would have to be satisfied with simply calling it a normal corn.

Realistically, in this day and age, it is pretty much impractical to make any sort of educated guess on what a corn snake actually IS, based on simply looking at a photograph of it. Does it have emoryi in it? How about Pituophis mixed in there 4 generations ago? It's gotten to the point that even calling something as a "corn snake", if you are implying a basically purely bred animal, is tough to do unless you know pretty much the genetic history back several generations.

With the number of animals coming from all kinds of sources and being funneled through dealers, wholesalers, and jobbers with NO history at all behind them and into the pet market, anyone who buys a corn snake from a pet shop within the last several years has nothing at all to go on concerning what it really is. I am certainly that all those culls from all sorts of hybrid and intergrade crosses are thrown right into that mix.

So even calling it a normal corn, is risky in itself.

 

[Joje126]

Thanks for all your replys. Im not dissapointed in the least that hes most likely a normal. Hes still my first corn, and that makes him special. Regardless of what he turns out to be genetically, I think hes gorgous.

I think this summer I'll look at getting a proven female hypo. just to test him out. We'll see what happens next spring.

Thanks again for having a look...

:cheers: