Reptile & Amphibian Forums

On the oddball alterna hatchling. Never witnessed the male corn courting the female GBK but did see the young male alterna all over her nightly for a while... Also, since there was only one good egg from the clutch, as an experiment, I incubated it at 90 F, a bit higher than I normally incubate snake eggs. There are no kinks in the spine, and the animal acts very normal and alert. I plan on raising this one up so I try to post updated pictures as it grows and the pattern becomes more defined. Anyone else get low egg counts out of young males? Or would that point more towards a hybrid? I agree that there are really no corn characteristics... but it doesn't seem possible that a pure alterna could look like this. Again, thank you all for your opinions, -Jon

That pattern might be environmental due to the somewhat high incubation temps?
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Herp Conservation Unlimited

If people really learn from their mistakes, I should be like the smartest guy in the world

That could explain the funky pattern and more.
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Steve W.

probably not the temp.....I hatch eggs too high all the time, never got any wierd patterns....too cold makes them also they say...like striped boas if female was too cold...and balls and burms I heard and have seen in past...

as for hybrid...it has that kinda hybrid look to it.....

corns and blair's have been crossed before.....long ago...I saw some, they didn't look like this one, and it was said theyw ere the "only " mule at that time....almost (all ) all other hybrids have been proven fertile....these blair corns were said to be infertile.....could have been just too young or just not breeding at the time I heard about them....

as for yours...yes...young males come up short alot...in all kinds of species.......

and I think it looks crossed...but we may never know....I also know crossing stuff is alot harder than eople think...even stuff like pueblan and mexican milks and sinaloae don't mix most of the time on their own.....

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........JY
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I used to have a albino female jungle corn. (I no longer have her or try to make hybrids) But, I got a male alterna to breed her twice, I confirmed it, even have pics. A week after the alterna breed her, I breed her to an albino cornsnake, just to make sure I would get viable eggs from her. My thinking was that any "normal" colored babies would be half alterna, and any albino babies would be from the corn. Well, 60 days later, all albinos. Despite the fact that the alterna did breed her twice, and a week before the corn did, there were no half alterna babies. I would have thought that it would be easier to create them using a jungle corn than a pure corn, but it did not happen. Needless to say, I no longer am even attempting to create alterna hybrids of any kind.

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South Texas Herps

one summer I left a clutch of alterna eggs in a house in Langtry for a week with no a/c and temps got near 100 inside. I got some very weird patterns. Nothing as severe as yours but similar.

John