Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been thinking about the fact that our commonly captive bred species may be so interbred that we may not even really know what we're breeding any more - and if we DO know, its our little secret

So I was thinking we might want to do a couple things. First would be to run some genetics (dna assays) of different morphs, and compare them against locality subspecies. For example, how do goini, brooksi, etc compare (on the DNA level) to museum collection specimens from 50 years ago.

This would allow us to certify lineages. And this isn't too expensive anymore.

The second suggestion is that we adopt the use of new scientific names for the commonly captive bred species. Since we really don't know how badly polluted the gene pool of commonly bred species (especially morphs) we should consider the adoption of examples, like these:

Pantherophis guttata domesticus
Lampropeltis getulus domesticus
Pituophis catenifer domesticus

and for ANY hybrid:

Serpent domesticus domesticus

I'm interested in feedback - and I'll post this in the king snake forum too to see what they think over there.

Joe

i completely understand where you are coming from, but some people will not say "hey, i breed hybrids but sell as pure-breds" one such way of helping is the ACR(American cornsnake registry) which is still new, but will ensure in the future how "pure" (in which a person says) their snakes are. I, personally have signed up as a breeder, But only have a few snakes registered.... just the snakes i know their backgrounds. i do have more to register within the next year or so, but i think this is just a VERY small way to fix the problem. but i am also willing to do anything in MY power to ensure 100% natural cornsnakes, kingsnakes, etc.
~kin
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~Sober Serpents~
Corns, Creamsicles, A Black Rat, Thayeri, Cal Kings, A Jungle Corn(Just A Pet), A Bearded dragon, Leopard Geckos, a Snapping turtle, and a white cheeked mud turtle

I have no problem with hybrids since I have bred them, and I also sell them as hybrids (emoryi meahllmorum x guttata = rootbeers het amel (creamsicle)). I do agree that it is wrong for a breeder to knowingly sell hybrids as 'pure' anything. Not to insult you, but I noticed that you have creamsicles, which are hybrids (guttata x emoryi), yet you say that you want to ensure 100% 'natural' corns. Taxonomists now consider emoryi to be a separate species from guttata, so creamsicles, rootbeers, cinnamons and possibly candycanes are hybrids to some degree. Even if you still hold with the old taxonomy that said emoryi is a subspecies of guttata, some would still consider the offspring to be hybrids or at the least unnatural captive intergrades.

-Toby

yes, i do have creams, thats why i put them seperate than "corns". i have no problem with hybrids, but i do hate it when people knowingly sell hybrids as "pure". the person i got the creams from DO have the creams registered AS creams via the ACR. and i trust the guy 100%. he may be reading this post, but i personally think he has the best emori/corn crosses. but once again thats just my thoughts. i 100% agree with kathy love and thats actually what i was trying to say, but it was also 1:00 am and i was getting tired so i may have mis-typed and i am sorry for that. and i truely do not intend to breed hybrids without selling as 100% hybrids. i hope i made myself more clear- sorry for the mis-communications
~kin
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~Sober Serpents~
Corns, Creamsicles, A Black Rat, Thayeri, Cal Kings, A Jungle Corn(Just A Pet), A Bearded dragon, Leopard Geckos, a Snapping turtle, and a white cheeked mud turtle

i don't know how it could work.i bred 2 generations of reverse okeetee's with no problems.produced all reverse okeetee's.then bred a great grandson back to the original female reverse okeetee and produced a few snows that were hidden for 2 gen's. now the first 2 gen's hatchlings that i sold as reverse okeetee's i had know idea that they were het for snow. and could have bin registered with acr as pure ro's. and if i didn't breed a 3rd time i would never of known. i guess acr is better than having nothing at all.
greg

In my model, your snakes would all be simply designated as "Domestic Corn Snakes" var. motley (or something like that)and given the scientific nomenclature: Pantherophis domesticus.

The point being, there is no sense in trying to tease out the lineage of the snakes that are commonly captive bred - their bloodlines are way to mixed up to know where they came from, what sub-species and even species blood they have in them.

The analogy is with the domestic dog. All breeds are Canis domesticus to distinguish them from all wild species of Canis. The snakes commonly bred in captivity are also too messed up to pretend they are the same as wild caught, so we can lump them all into broad "domestic" catagories, then distinguish them as "varieties" with the "var" tag.

Joe

The domestic dog is Canis lupus familiaris, a sub species of the grey wolf.

>>i don't know how it could work.i bred 2 generations of reverse okeetee's with no problems.produced all reverse okeetee's.then bred a great grandson back to the original female reverse okeetee and produced a few snows that were hidden for 2 gen's. now the first 2 gen's hatchlings that i sold as reverse okeetee's i had know idea that they were het for snow. and could have bin registered with acr as pure ro's. and if i didn't breed a 3rd time i would never of known. i guess acr is better than having nothing at all.
>>greg

What, in your mind, means "pure" reverse okeetee?
The fact that they were het anery does not mean they are not reverse okeetees.
Reverse okeetees are simply amels selectively bred to enhance the white borders to look like the "reverse" of an okeetee.
Unless you know of any outside species such as emoryi they are still as "pure" as any other reverse okeetees.

On another note...the ACR is only as good as the information provided to it and the information provided to the buyer when he purchases his snake.
If Joe goes to a show and buys an amel and decides to register that amel with the ACR, well the ACR registers that animal as an amel.
Simple right? Wrong.
What if that snake had emoryi, grey rat or whatever in it and was sold as an amel.
Probably not as prevalent as it used to be since creams bring as much, or more, then typical amels but it could simply be a mistake by someone who doesn't really know the difference. Then, of course, there are the people who would knowingly try to deceive. Sell animals with the knowledge they are more likely to by hybrids then pure but choose to ignore this.
There is absolutely no way for the ACR to know or determine the lineage of the snake.
They have not made it to the point where you have to prove lineage to register a snake.
All you have to do is pay $6.00 or whatever the price.
I have some snakes registered with the ACR, "pure" and "hybrids" but I doubt I will register anymore.
Just too many to register each year and costs way too much with no return.
Say I produce 200 hatchlings. At $6.00 each that's $1200.00
And what do I get in return? Nothing that I know of, yet.
More paperwork for me, more records to keep up with and no more value on my snakes.
Example...You are looking to buy a ghost. You go to a show and you have a couple of tables with ghosts for sale. They are all great examples of ghosts and you have a hard time deciding which you want. Then you look at the price. Table "A" as their ghosts for $30.00, table "B" has their ghosts for $40.00 because they are trying to recoup the ACR registration fee and extra time in records. How hard do you think that decision was to make.
$10.00 cheaper. For that you can buy a couple month supply of pinkies for your new ghost.
Now there might be a few that would be willing to pay the extra for the registered snakes but not nearly as many as would go for the $10.00 discount.
You see it at every show. The cheaper the snakes the quicker they sell.
oh well, the way I see it anyway
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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"Resistance is futile"
Jimmy Johnson
(Draybar)
Draybars Snakes

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don't bother with the ACR. When I see an ad with ACR, it means nothing. The info there is only as good and reliable as the person that posted the info. I don't care for hybrids. It's just my personal choice. Just like those that made the personal choice to work with hybrids. When I make a purchase it has more to do with the breeder, the particular snake, and what info they have or are willing to share about the snake. I either trust the breeder or don't. The fact that they registered the hatchlings with the ACR doesn't add any credibility.

I just don't see this doing too much as a whole.

I guess it might help SOME folks "feel" better about some of their animals that are bought and sold, but that's about it.

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

much more helpful than described in this thread. Firstly, I don't register the individual babies, I register my breeders (or future breeders) only. That is a whole lot cheaper, since I have a lot more babies than adults. And after they are registered once, there is no more expense for the rest of their breeding lives. Pre-registration of clutches is free if the adults are both registered. Only when and if the purchaser decides to register an individual baby will there be an additional charge by the ACR. So the expense is very minimal. And there is even a formula for free credits towards registering your future breeders when your customers register their own babies they obtained from you. But unless you are registering a very large collection of breeders, the cost is pretty minimal. I registered all of mine a couple of years ago when the ACR offered a one year grace period for free registration of all yearlings and adults.

It is true that only one, or even two, generations of record info is of only limited benefit. But think how useful it will be 3 or 4 or more generations from now. Consider how helpful it would be if you could click on the records of the parents of your new corn, see their photos and all known info about them, then click on THEIR parent's info and photos, and so on through a few generations? It is true that the info is only as good as the input, but photo records over several generations would help explain why snows suddenly pop out of amels, or might show a creamsicle 3 generations back when the current breeder totally forgot about it. And keep in mind that although fraud is very possible, people who bother to register their corns are most likely serious about their projects. Unlike some pythons, there is not enough money in corns to spend a lot of time and energy setting up false pedigrees to get a couple of dollars more for a baby. Most mistakes will be honest ones, and will likely come out over a few generations of breeding records when babies appear and either conform, or not, to what they are "supposed" to be, according to their pedigree. And after many generations of seeing what the ancestors looked like, mistakes will be "diluted" and hopefully less important as more generations are added. The only other real alternative is to rely on the records and memories of individual breeders, which for most, tend to be less reliable as time goes on.

It is true that the extra work we are doing right now by registering breeders without complete info on their genetic heritage is of less value than the info that will come in 5 or 10 years or more of records. But if we don't start now, we will lose a lot of the current info by then. Records can be lost, memories fail.

I just talked to Chuck and Connie at the Chicago show. They said they have about 5,000 snakes registered now. It is a good start, and some customers of mine are really starting to get excited when they can see photos of the parents, and sometimes, grandparents, of their new pets. Some will use this info for serious breeding projects, and some just like the idea of a "registered" snake with a cute certificate. But it all advances the hobby, and I think it is a great start.

Yes,....I can see where especially the photographic lineage of stock would be EXTREMELY useful in the future.

When explained in detail like you did, I can understand some benefits.

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

i agree. nice post. i have bin breeding show boxers for over 20 yrs and registering them with the akc. and from what i have read about early days of the akc. people said it would never work. boy were they wrong. with akc you know exactly what you are getting. the dogs pedigree to me is like a blueprint of your dogs ancestry. i think with acouple of generations of registering with acr it can work. the akc is a good example.
greg

>>much more helpful than described in this thread. Firstly, I don't register the individual babies, I register my breeders (or future breeders) only. That is a whole lot cheaper, since I have a lot more babies than adults. And after they are registered once, there is no more expense for the rest of their breeding lives. Pre-registration of clutches is free if the adults are both registered. Only when and if the purchaser decides to register an individual baby will there be an additional charge by the ACR. So the expense is very minimal. And there is even a formula for free credits towards registering your future breeders when your customers register their own babies they obtained from you. But unless you are registering a very large collection of breeders, the cost is pretty minimal. I registered all of mine a couple of years ago when the ACR offered a one year grace period for free registration of all yearlings and adults.
>>
>>It is true that only one, or even two, generations of record info is of only limited benefit. But think how useful it will be 3 or 4 or more generations from now. Consider how helpful it would be if you could click on the records of the parents of your new corn, see their photos and all known info about them, then click on THEIR parent's info and photos, and so on through a few generations? It is true that the info is only as good as the input, but photo records over several generations would help explain why snows suddenly pop out of amels, or might show a creamsicle 3 generations back when the current breeder totally forgot about it. And keep in mind that although fraud is very possible, people who bother to register their corns are most likely serious about their projects. Unlike some pythons, there is not enough money in corns to spend a lot of time and energy setting up false pedigrees to get a couple of dollars more for a baby. Most mistakes will be honest ones, and will likely come out over a few generations of breeding records when babies appear and either conform, or not, to what they are "supposed" to be, according to their pedigree. And after many generations of seeing what the ancestors looked like, mistakes will be "diluted" and hopefully less important as more generations are added. The only other real alternative is to rely on the records and memories of individual breeders, which for most, tend to be less reliable as time goes on.
>>
>>It is true that the extra work we are doing right now by registering breeders without complete info on their genetic heritage is of less value than the info that will come in 5 or 10 years or more of records. But if we don't start now, we will lose a lot of the current info by then. Records can be lost, memories fail.
>>
>>I just talked to Chuck and Connie at the Chicago show. They said they have about 5,000 snakes registered now. It is a good start, and some customers of mine are really starting to get excited when they can see photos of the parents, and sometimes, grandparents, of their new pets. Some will use this info for serious breeding projects, and some just like the idea of a "registered" snake with a cute certificate. But it all advances the hobby, and I think it is a great start.

I thought to register any of my new hatchlings it would cost.
Some of my original breeders are registered but I thought it cost to register any new snakes.
It cost $6.00 for every one of those snakes I registered (24).
Are you saying that because they are registered it is free to register their hatchlings?
That would make it a little more worthwhile.
It is still only as good as the information given. And 10 or so years down the road a wrongly registered snake is still a wrongly registered snake but you do make good points, as usual Kathy.
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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"Resistance is futile"
Jimmy Johnson
(Draybar)
Draybars Snakes

_____

Yes, it does cost to register each baby (but is cheaper if both parents are registered than if not registered, although I don't know the actual prices. It is also cheaper to register a bunch - maybe 10? - at a time, than singly). But I register very few babies - only those I keep for future breeders for myself. And I won't register those until they are yearlings and I am sure they will actually be keepers. I am not trying to grow the collection now, only raise a few replacements, so it is not a lot to register each year.

Chuck's idea is that eventually a breeder will be able to register most of their own replacement babies for free, based on how many of their own customers register babies. But that may take a while to build up.

It is up to the customers to register THEIR babies and pay the fee, if they so desire. That is why I don't consider it a big expense.

I agree that the breeder might not get a lot out of it right now, but I strongly believe that it will be a great help in the future. And that there are less likely to be mistakes made when the registration is done while the snake is still young, compared to trying to dredge up records for a customer 10 years in the future. And I have already caught a few mistakes I made in the initial registry and have fixed them. If I waited too long, I might not have remembered what the real info was.

I was offered $10 for baby corns...I wish I would have given him 100 of them and taken the cash.......trying to sell $40 corns for $40 doesn't work as fast as we like....and usually people want them cheaper anyways.......

my thought was IF I make as many corns again...take the $10 for 100 of them and keep some good stuff and sell them at a little better price.....yet still keep no recorns and sell them all as corns for the same prices.....

.......how many people get any snake with ultra in it now and don't know it....(cremes for year).....

people don't have a clue what they got even IF YOU TELL THEM what it is........they forget.....I got a brook's king yeasterday...I said what is it...big female.he says brooksi.....I said hypo?...he says...I don't know..looks like a hypo to me.peanut butter even.......?........(giving it to a friend)........

.......people alot of times don't remember what they got or where.........

.......and I still says Elaphe..........

?

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sell them all............
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As far as elephe goes, I think the distinction between new world and old world is called for. There are some kinks to work out though....
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-David Harrison-
.1 Snow Corn "Hope"
1. Striped Anery Corn "V" or "5".....Has two names
1. Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Chunk" (Goonies)
.1 Orange Albino Black Ratsnake "Peaches"
.1 Ball Python "Rocky Ballboa" (Didn't name her!)
0.0.1 Crested Gecko "The Crested Gecko"

"Have you ever tried simply turning off the T.V., sitting down with your kids... and hitting them?"

agree on making them different.....

just a habit........

......and I still can't believe that old and new cannot mix....

......four lined and yellows just look alike.....

.......yet here we never get many old world rat at shows anyways.....some I never have seen....

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......and noone wants the big girls anymore....wow..................
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>First would be to run some genetics (dna assays) of different morphs, and compare them against locality subspecies.

This wouldn't work. Genetic tests are being run on wild snakes and there is still much disagreement as to their classification. Different researchers have different ways of interpreting genetic data. In the past few years there's been a heck of a lot of reclassifications and everything has not been settled yet in terms of the taxonomy of snakes.

>This would allow us to certify lineages. And this isn't too expensive anymore.

Really? How much does it cost? From what I understand, such tests are out of the realm of what most hobbyists can afford - especially with the realtively cheap prices most colubrids sell for these days.

I think most people look at snakes and decide their "purity" by the physical appearance of the animal. Hybrids and intergrades can and do happen in nature, which kind of makes a "genetic purity" test not particularly useful - for wild or captive bred snakes.

Tim