Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I made a post on the Corn Snake Forum, which I'll link below. Although I showed a couple pics, I'll show different ones here.

The reason I like this breeding is because the male, Miami X (25%) Keys Corn, gave a light gray ground color with some reddish/brown blotches. Also there was the smaller size. The female, a reverse-striped thornscrub rat, Pantherophis (Elaphe) emoryi meahllmorum, also had a light gray ground color, with a plain venter, and some laterally split blotches (aberrant pattern). The babies are medium sized, with bright reddish blotches and pinkish/gray ground color. Some of the blotches are split laterally or have stripes running through them. Ventrums vary with amt of blotching, but have good amts of pink. There were eight babies in the clutch which were around 12 grams/ea; and they started eating pinky mice on the first try. There is also the possibility of babies being het. for hypo, since the father is thought to be hypo.

Here's a few pics.

Hybrid Corn3 - dorsal view...

Hybrid Corn3 - ventral view...

Hybrid Corn2 - dorsal view...

Hybrid Corn2 - ventral view...

I think these rootbeers are going to have nice color/pattern and a great body form. I'm hoping we can get the hypo gene into the line also.

For a more detailed post on the breeding, I have a post on the Ratsnake Foundation, "Pantherophis Forum".

Thanks for looking...

- Terry
Corn Snake Forum

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Nice post and pics, Terry! Are those recent pics? If so, they seem to be holding on to a nice reddish color. Mine seem to be losing some of the redness in their dorsal blotches, and fading toward a brownish coloration more like their meahllmorum mother. They still have pretty clean gray ground colors though, which I like. The father of my clutch is an orange candycane corn, so they are het for amel and will produce some creamsicles when bred back to each other.

I'll try to get some new pics of my keepers soon, but having camera problems atm.

-Toby

Thanks, Toby.

The pics were taken on September 25th, and I haven't had a chance to have them out since then, because I was in AZ for two weeks, mostly. I'll try to get some more recent ones soon, but I think they're holding their color pretty well, so far. Hope you solve the camera probs and we get to see updates of your babies...

- Terry

Terry,

Forgot to say, the faint mid-dorsal stripe on some of yours is very interesting.

It has been very interesting this year, to me, to have a clutch of corns, a clutch of rootbeers and a clutch of meahllmorum all at the same time. The corns just seem tiny compared to the meahllmorum, but the rootbeerss are right in the middle. They are strong, beefy babies, not too big and not too small - just right.LOL

-Toby

Well, I'm pretty happy they eat as well as they do, and I like their size too. I'm a little surprised there were only eight eggs from the meahllmorum mother, but part of the reason might be because it was a first clutch.

It must have been an interesting exercise for you and quite a comparison. Are you going to compare them over a length of time, say six months, or more?

- Terry

Yep, that's what I'm planning on, Terry. I'm keeping a 1.1 of each and actually need to get some weights and new photos for comparison real soon.

Another possibility for your smaller number of eggs is that your female meahllmorum is a central/inland locality, correct? I think it is possible that the inland meahllmorum have clutch sizes more like typical emoryi. I think these coastals, like I have, may have larger clutches, because this clutch of rootbeers was my female's first clutch also and it was 13 eggs. My older female's first clutch (pure meahllmorum breeding) was 12 eggs, and she now averages 14 eggs.

-Toby

>>Yep, that's what I'm planning on, Terry. I'm keeping a 1.1 of each and actually need to get some weights and new photos for comparison real soon.
>>
>>Another possibility for your smaller number of eggs is that your female meahllmorum is a central/inland locality, correct? I think it is possible that the inland meahllmorum have clutch sizes more like typical emoryi. I think these coastals, like I have, may have larger clutches, because this clutch of rootbeers was my female's first clutch also and it was 13 eggs. My older female's first clutch (pure meahllmorum breeding) was 12 eggs, and she now averages 14 eggs.
>>
>>-Toby

Yeah, I know those coastal meahllmorum have fairly large clutches, but I've never bred one of these central meahllies before. Maybe they are more like typical emoryi. I know the Intermountain Ratsnake had a fairly small clutch too. Maybe when I get the La Salle (central) meahllies raised up and bred we'll find out more about clutch size. Thanks...

TC

Very nice. I have become a big fan of meahllmorums and this year I am going to breed Steve Craigs amel emoryi to my normal corn to hopefully start my own "creamsicles" with the emoryi amel gene instead of the corn amel gene just to see if there is a difference in the look.

Hey Ralph, how are the babies? Interesting project with the amel emoryi. Best of luck.

-Toby

They are doing good and and are real spit fires. I'll post a pick of one just before he bit me..he's a fiend!!LOL

>>They are doing good and and are real spit fires. I'll post a pick of one just before he bit me..he's a fiend!!LOL

Haha! That's great! Yeah, those F1 meahllies start out pretty feisty and can take some months to settle down, but eventually they will. Looking forward to the photo.

-Toby

A noble cause..heheh! I'd like to see what they look like too; but the main reason I cross the two ssps. is because of the size differences, as well as to get the mutations. I think the rootbeers have a nicer, or more controllable, "size", especially in the babies, which take pinks pretty easily. Mine are taking fuzzies already, at about two months old. Good luck with your project and keep us posted.

- Terry

>>Very nice. I have become a big fan of meahllmorums and this year I am going to breed Steve Craigs amel emoryi to my normal corn to hopefully start my own "creamsicles" with the emoryi amel gene instead of the corn amel gene just to see if there is a difference in the look.

Talk to Soderberg. He's done it back when he tested the emoryi gene. Looks pretty much within the range of creamsicles, only confusing since it produced two non-allelic (but nearly identical looking) lines of creamsicle corns. He terminated the idea because of the associated problems he could foresee and the lack of a measurable difference/benefit.

KJ
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KJUN Snakehaven

my thoughts exactly!