Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone know where the stripes originated from in corns? Was it from wild caught animals or bred from abberant captive bred animals that first started the striped pattern morph? You often see striped Florida rat snakes for sale in "more or less" a natural occuring pattern in this species. Did our beloved corn stripes originate from Florida rat snakes? Just curious as I'm starting to add some stripes to my collection and i don't recall reading where stripes originated from.

Thanks in advance
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Ken Roshak
BlackSwampSerpents@toast.net

According to Kathy Love's "Corn Snake Manual"........'the first Striped Corns were hatched by Mike Nolan in England in the mid 1980s. Ernie Wagner imported the original parental stock and some of the striped babies into the U.S.'

From Kathy's wording I gather the first Stripes were hatched from normal looking adults. I'm not 100% sure so your best bet is to email Kathy directly on that.

kathy@cornutopia.com

On a sidenote, in the Corn Snake manual there IS a photo (page 98) of a Striped Corn hatched from eggs laid by a wild-caught specimen at a dealer's shop in Tampa, Florida in 1980. (It doesn't say in the book what happened to this animal. Whether it was bred and is responsible for another line of Stripes is anyone's guess. Email Kathy, she probably knows either way. )

The animal pictured on page 98 looks EXACTLY like every normal Stripe I've hatched, so I'm quite sure the Stripe morph in corns is NOT the result of hybridization with other ratsnake species in Florida.

Attached is an older image of a Stripe het anery/amel/hypo I hatched and kept back in 2003.

BB

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"Have you hugged your drummer today?" --- Me

Thanks for the great info! I'll email Kathy too. I have one of her hypo stripes a buddy sent me from CA so I'll update her on it's progress. I lost my original copy of the manual so I'll have to get her updated one and check out those pics. Wow, that's a beautiful stripe corn, thanks for sharing!
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Ken Roshak
BlackSwampSerpents@toast.net

Well, that's interesting, yea, I bought my albino striped a couple years ago and was reading up in that same manual as well, it's funny that you don't hear much about stripes. If i had a pic right now i would put it up, but i'm at school and they restricted access to Myspace xP.. but if u'd like to see her, the URL is www.myspace.com/maddzandmidge

here's an old pic i had of her as a baby... OLD.. lol..

Thanks for sharing the pic. You have a little beauty there. I tried the MySpace pics but couldn't get to them. If you have a grown-up pic that would be great if you could post it. I'd like to see how your baby changed as it aged.
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Ken Roshak
BlackSwampSerpents@toast.net

I think if the striped corns actually did originate from yellow rat hybridization, the babies would start out blotched and end up striped. Ring any bells? Bloodreds?!

I have a friend that regularly catches motley corns in the certain localities in Florida. Since the pattern is not visivly disfunctional in terms of creating optical illusions in motion, it's not difficult to imagine they originated from wild ancestors. Of course, many snakes escape and some are released into the wild, so "wild-caught" motley and striped corns could sometimes be the result of animal polution.

Since many species around the world have striped mutations hiding in their genetic blueprints, it's merely a matter of time before we can report that all snake species in this world are known to have striped representatives. It's the color mutations that will have trouble surviving. Atypically patterned individuals can blend in with most landscapes, but some color oddities may as well be wearing neon signs that say DINE HERE!
www.cornsnake.NET

Thanks for the response Don. The more I learn about stripes the more interested in them I become There's something about those nice, crisp "racing stripes" that really grabs my attention. Then again, the vanishing stripes are really awesome as well. So many morphs! I'm glad to hear stripes are merely recessive traits that surfaced over time and not hybrids, intergrades etc.
I just picked up your book at a local reptile show and I'm anxious to start reading it. There are some great shots of some beautiful morphs in there.
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Ken Roshak
BlackSwampSerpents@toast.net

Striping and other pattern aberrancies happen in the wild. There are naturally-occuring populations of Cal kings that are striped. In addition, a number of wild striped gopher snakes have been found. So there's really no hybridization or intergration needed for some types of snake to produce stripes - it happens naturally.

Tim

Here's a couple of copperheards I found in Kentucky in 2003.
The one in the lower left corner has a "zigzag" or "aztec" pattern often seen in captive bred corns.

Third Eye

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm familiar with pits and the naturally ocurring striped morphs that are wild caught in some species. It only makes sense corn genetics, or other snakes for that matter, can start the same way.

Have a good day.
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Ken Roshak
BlackSwampSerpents@toast.net