>I know a bloodredXghost will give normals, het bloodred, het ghost. (It will won't it?) If I cross the F1's, what will I get in the second generation? I assume I will get normals, ghosts, bloodreds and bloodredghosts?
Ghost is a combination of two independent recessive mutants, hypomelanistic and anerythristic. Het ghost is slang. The most accurate wording is heterozygous hypomelanistic, heterozygous anerythristic. IOW, bloodred x ghost will give normals that are heterozygous bloodred (the pattern), heterozygous hypomelanistic, heterozygous anerythristic.
AFAIK, bloodred morph is a deep, dark red with an uncheckered belly and diffuse markings on the back and sides. Unfortunately, the recessive mutant that produces the diffuse markings and uncheckered belly is also called bloodred. So I will try to distinguish between the two by referring to them as bloodred the color and bloodred the pattern.
AFAIK, nobody knows how bloodred the color is inherited. My impression is that it's likely to be produced by several genes with an additive effect on the red. So crossing a bloodred morph to a normal corn is likely to produce redder than normal (but not as red as a bloodred) in the first generation (F1 generation). Mating two of the F1s could produce normal and bloodred colored snakes, but is more likely to produce just about any shade of red between those two extremes. Selective breeding should be able to recover bloodred the color in a few generations.
As hypomelanistic, anerythristic, and bloodred the pattern are recessive mutants, crossing a pair of F1s that are hterozygous for all three will produce babies that are normal, hypomelanistic, anerythristic, bloodred the pattern, hypomelanistic and anerythristic (ghost), hypomelanistic and bloodred the pattern, anerythristic and bloodred the pattern, and (last but not least) hypomelanistic and anerythristic and bloodred the pattern.
You might want to get hold of Mick Spencer's Corn Snake Progeny Predictor Program (for Windows machines). It won't help with bloodred the color but should help with all the rest of the mutants.
Paul Hollander
