when was "charcoal" discovered?

[HomeBreeder]

I have a very old male (he was 6 feet long when I got him) that looks nearly identical to a pic on Rich's Charcoal page (charcoal05.jpg). My friend (who had to find a home for it) said it was a ghost, but knowing what I do these days I'm 99% certain it's a charcoal (although some who've seen it suggest it might have great plains rat in it) so it makes me curious when the Love's isolated their Anery-B line. I should have some offspring from him soon, so I'll have more evidence as to what he is, but if the evidence indicates he's a WC charcoal I would think I lucked into a very nice male to have indeed. Actually, either way I lucked out - he's the sweetest of all my snakes.

^Curtis

 

[Rich Z]

They've been around for quite a while...

I bought two of the normal colored original offspring from Bill Love's breeding of the original animal to a Snow corn back in 1985.

But don't jump to conclusions based on just what an animal looks like. Things are way too confusing enough as it is. Best thing to do would be to breed it to a known genetic Charcoal and see what you get.

Personally, I think I am going to be printing out some deli cup labels this year that only have a question mark on it. And those are for animals that I have a pretty good handle on what genetic stock they have come from.

One of these days we might have to consider making up a panel of members to ID unknowns. Perhaps even extend that a little bit by having a peer group to analyze new cultivars or new names applied to old ones so we can all be on the same page with this stuff. Don Soderberg and I have discussed this many times over the years and are seeing things just getting worse rather than better. But I'm not sure what it would take to get nearly everyone to go along with a program like this. Peer pressure? Something tells me this would evolve into something that would be a whole lot of work to maintain. Certainly there would be no real way to enforce any decisions made.

 

[HomeBreeder]

You're telling me it's confusing! One of the corns in my collection was sold to me as a "pastel motley X albino okeetee" but she looks for all the world like a simple anery to me - probably anery B, so in a couple years I can breed her to Max, but it won't prove alot if she's not charcoal, of course. Perhaps as she matures it'll become more apparent to me what she's got in her blood. I'm clueless how crossing a pastel motley with an albino could produce this girl though. (Maybe she's homo-Anery and het for: pastel, motley, amel, and okeetee because her parents were both het Anery....)

I'm not holding my breathe, but I have the crazy notion I might be able to help rally herp breeders together for certain common causes (currently looking for hosting of a BBS for my www.herphiles.com domain as the nexus, and I think I might have something in the works with an old coworker) one tangent of which could very well be *some* form of pedigree, or other semi-official commitee or process to help improve the expanding problem of knowing where your genes came from. Other than hosting all it needs is participants willing to give a little of themselves for the greater good of herping. I don't plan on personally micro-managing the project, because I'm hopeful there is enough creativity and cooperation amonst herpers to pull it together as a group effort.

If anyone has feedback, I'm all ears. (Many thanks to Skylark711 for joining me in a discussion that promted me to give this a shot.)

^Curtis

 

[Rich Z]

Well to be honest it is a rare year that the pedigree issue doesn't come up at this time of year. The problem is that the major breeders or corn snakes (or any species, for that matter) just flat out produces too many of them to make any sort of registration system feasible. This has been kicked around by Don Soderberg and myself many times. Imagine the time needed to register 3,000 baby corn snakes with some sort of positive ID method. Photographs? Yeah right. Who would have time for something like that? When I set aside time to take photos for one reason or another, I might spend an hour to get photos of maybe 20 animals. I couldn't get the photos taken fast enough to get them registered before they would be shipped out the door. Plus who would manage the registration system and handle all of the overhead associated with it? That work load would also be immense. I lost my registration paper and need a replacement. I need it RIGHT NOW because I have a shipment I can't make without it. Can you verify that this registration is bonafide? Can you tell me the owners of the grandparents of this registration number? Gee, I'm sorry but I mislabeled my registration photos and need you to renumber EGG021456 thru EGG023270 by adding 2 to each number. Those are the kinds of things (and much more) that would be nearly a daily occurence.

Most people would want to get paid for that kind of effort, so whom would be footing the bills? The breeders? Even if I were charged just $1 per animal to register them, that would be a lot of money I would have to fork out every year. And just the time alone would kill me. I would have to hire a full time person just to be able to handle that work load.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe it is basically a good idea, but so far no one has come up with a feasible way of handling the actual nuts and bolts of how it would work. Nearly every plan I saw assumed a minimal number of animals that the registrant would have to deal with. Realistically, unless it is something that the major producers of the animals can feasibly buy into, it will be doomed to failure from the very start.

Hate to sound so negative, but this has been pretty thoroughly discussed in the past. Unless you have a plan or idea that is completely unique and unthoughtof before, it will get pretty much shot full of holes right out of the starting gate.

 

[Bippy]

Well, while the pedigree system might be a bit overload due to the volume of snakes, it sounds to me like a morph name/verification committee might make sense.

Here's how I would see it (your view may vary):
A group of some of the most prestigious breeders (that are willing to take the time) would be put in charge of managing the official names of morphs, and writing up the criteria for said morphs.

In other words, if there was a need to come up with a new name for a morph (say, hypo lavender for example), the committee would take suggestions, and then decide amongst themselves which of the names would best fit the cultivar. I'd imagine there would be some sort of guidelines as to the procedure, like there needed to be X number of adult cornsnakes to look at in order to make sure that a descriptive enough name could be decided upon. The fact that the committee would be of the prestigious breeders would be peer pressure for everyone out there to change to the accepted norm. I'd imagine there'd be a transition period where the morph was listed under multiple forms, but eventially the majority of breeders would switch over to the new name.

In terms of keeping track of morph criteria, the committee would have to define exactly what constitutes each morph. Some, like Amelanism are pretty easily defined (having 2 copies of the amel gene), but others, like Okeetee phase, are so nebulous that no one can agree. There would need to be a set description which defined the morph. Either it met the definition, and was, or it didn't meet it, and wasn't.


As for the addition of new morphs, whoever came up with a new morph would have to provide enough documentation to convince the committee that it should indeed be classified as a new morph, the definition for said morph, a proposed name, and any breeding records to prove the heritability (or not) of said morph. That is, if someone created a Butter Lavender, they'd need to prove that their snake was indeed a butter lavender, by breeding it and producing the correct offspring.



Unsure whether this idea would fly or not, but it's alot less work than the pedigree business, and it would hopefully add some structure to the morph-definition in this hobby.

Just to recap, the committee would:

1) Handle naming of morphs
2) Handle defining morphs
3) Handle the addition of new morphs

Good idea/Bad idea?

 

[Darin Chappell]

I think a committee is a good attempt at fixing a real defect in the business, but here's my problems with having a committee in charge of naming, defining, and adding new morphs into "the mix." Just my opinions here . . .

First, if I produce a new morph by finding that special wild caught specimen, and I take the time to bring out something that no one else has yet found, you better believe that I want to name that morph myself. Not only do I want to have the satisfaction of creatively naming a line of snakes that I produced, but I would want to make certain that people thought of me and my business when they thought of (fill in the blank). No committee ought to be able to overrule what I think my newly discovered morph looks like, and if the committee doesn't overrule, but simply rubber stamps whatever the breeder chooses, what good does it serve? If we don't think that the naming of a color morph can be a sticky subject to a breeder, read Rich's description of how the lavender/mocha fiasco panned out! Rich did adopt the lavender name (because they truly are lavender as adults), but it bothered him somewhat to change the name of the cultivar HE FOUND!

Second, I think a committee determining what makes a morph *true* in a snake is unneccessary. The reason I say this is because I think most people who have studied up on corns very much can see for themselves what the generalized *standards* are for each morph. Yes, I know that there are pet shops and breeders dishonest enough to advertize "rocket red sunburst motley-ish corn hatchlings" for only 59.99 each, but the informed buyer will not even pause at such an offer. The uninformed? Well, would they know enough to study the committee's guidelines anyway? If a committee did establish guidlines (I'm still not convinced you get all of THEM to agree on what an okeetee really is), this would still not stop disreputable breeders and pet shops from doing what they do now, and the uniformed would still line up to take all those normals, amels, anerys, and snows home for two to three times what they were worth.

Third, It seems to me that a committee would also be unneccessary to the recognition of new morphs in the business. Quite frankly, if Rich Z., Don Soderberg, Kathy Love, or a few others tell me they have something new, I believe it because of their reputation. If anyone else says they have developed some that no one else has (include those three mentioned above), I am COMPLETELY suspicious and not very likely to buy anything from them. No committee proclaimation is going to change that for me.

Breeding cornsnakes is like being in the pharmecuetical business. You work really hard on research and development, unveil your new find to your customers and collegues, and then sell as many as you can, for as much as you can, as soon as you can! You do this because you know that your time for having exclusive rights to your product is limited (the patent runs out on new drugs, and previous customers of a breeder become his/her competitors three years later when their purchases are then producing). Also, both industries have to be ever on guard for the knockoff wannabe generics!

Maybe it shouldn't be this way, but it seems to me that it will continue as long as: a) cornsnakes continue to produce an unbelieveable array of color and pattern possibilities and b) disreputable people try to cash in on the hard work of others and take advantage of the ill-informed.

My two cents' worth

 

[Rich Z]

I wish I had time to read this stuff earlier in the day when more of my brain cells are still kicking. 3:00 am is not when I need to get into heavy discussions.

Anyway Darin makes some very good points. And what is actually unsaid that anyone on that committee would have a thankless job. I expect people would have to be drafted for it, do a two year tour of duty, and then get a Purple Heart award if they live through it. As Darin points out, NO ONE is going to like the choice of a new name for their own creation being at the discretion of someone else, I don't care whom it is. And many people would certainly believe that any rejected name they offered was done from pure spitefullness and forever hold a grudge against whomever happened to be on the committee at that time.

I wish Don would put his two cents in here, as he often emails me about this topic I certainly would like to see his input here.

Anyway, I think what gripes people the most is when people will hatch out an animal that has been around for a while, and just because they never saw one like it before, will put some name on it that just gets pulled out of thin air. I actually had someone email me a photograph of an animal that they were extremely excited about because they were certain it was a brand new genetic type that they luckily hatched out. I hated to do it, but I had to bust their bubble by telling them that it was nothing more than a very typical Motley corn. This happens all of the time.

I believe there has been some controversy on Kingsnake.com's corn snake forum about the Rootbeer Corn. I honestly haven't been following it, so I have no idea what is behind all that.

I think (with those last few brain cells still firing now), that any sort of committee would be limited to proclaiming whether or not something someone was calling a new gene or new cultivar, really was such a thing and whether it really warranted a new name applied to it. If so, then the person whom came up with it should be the one that would apply the name to it. As we all know, just because YOU may assign your favorite name to a particular look of a corn snake, is absolutely no guarantee that it will reach critical mass with the general public. I guess my question at this point would be whether the committee would somehow enforce that name to remain or entertain the application of someone else renaming it something that might prove to be more appropriate or more popular as time goes by and more people see the type of animal.

One real problem such a committee would face is having to decide how finely to split a hair. What differences would warrant a new name? Anyone that has produced a fair number of corn snakes knows there is nearly an infinite number of variabilities in every single individual. I've had people buy corns because they liked the head pattern, or that one spot of color right behind the head, or any number of things that someone else might think was insignificant.

Heck, I think people will run out of names before they will run out of variations in the corn snake! I'll bet if I pulled a Rip Van Winkle, I would come back here and wouldn't have a clue what any of you are talking about any longer.

Well, I've been sitting here staring at this screen for 15 minutes now and nothing new has jumped into my mind, so I guess all of my brain cells have turned in for the night. As always, I plead insanity if anyone finds spelling or punctuation errors in this message.