Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Question for you genetic guys. I recently acquired an adult ultra-anery that is not het for any form of amel. I was under the impression that the ultra gene shared the allele with amel and had to piggy back amel to be produced.

Please educate me.

Thanks… Jeff

That looks like a 100% Okeetee to me!!!

It is (an Abbott). Attached wrong pic. sorry

Thats cool. It's a very nice snake!!!

If I'm not mistaken I think the Ultra is a morph of it's own. When bred to an amel it produces all Ultramel babies in the first generation. It's like the Peanut Butter and Amel Brooks kings produce all Jellies in the first generation. There are Ultra Corns aren't there? Give us a picture of the snake you have. By the way that Okeetee is very nice.

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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

I am not exactly sure how it works, but there is an ultra morph and an ultramel morph. I have an ultramel female that produces amels and ultramels when bred to a male with amelanism in his genes like butter, snow, or regular amel. I suspect ultra works like hypomelanism and is simple recessive, and only part of the ultramel equation.

Ultra is a type of hypo and on its own is a simple recessive trait that happens to be a mutation of the same gene that amel mutated from. Thus, they "share" the same spot on the genome. This spot can either have two ultra genes (as in ultra aneries or ultra-whatevers), one ultra and one amel gene (ultramels) or two amelanism genes (amels, of course)

If your new snake really is Ultra (and not Ultramel), when bred to any albino, you'll get 100% ultramels. If it's only an Ultramel Anery (Ultras and Ultramels are difficult to differentiate - so visually identifying them is not guaranteed), when bred to an amel, you'll get approximately 50% amels and 50% ultramels.

When Ultra corns are bred to non albinos, the mutation behaves as in recessive fashion (all progeny are het for ultra). In other words, if you prove your snake is Ultra and not Ultramel (breeding trials are the only sure way to do that), your snake will probably not be as attractive as it's Ultramel (het) counterpart, but should have a higher value in the corn snake market, in so much as breeding one to an albino will yield 100% Ultramels instead of approximately 50% in the case Ultramel X Amel.

The visual product (phenotype) of Ultras and Ultramels generally resembles Hypomelanistic mutants, but to keep people from confusing them, I prefer not to call them Hypos (even though they satisfy all visual and physical standards of Hypos). As stated on this thread, the mutant allele shares the same genome locus with Amel, but it is not an albino (at least not by visual standards). Thus far, in the corn snake hobby, Hypos possess no melanin in their epidermis (the upper derm layer that is sloughed during ecdysis). You will see black (or variations thereof) on most Hypo types, but that melanin resides in the lower derm layers that do not slough. I said "so far" because lacking melanin in their epidermis may not always be a marker for Hypo types. In fact, I've see faint pattern in many Hypo types (especially when the Hypo mutation is in concert with Anery types). Conversely, some non Hypos can show NO black, but if they do not have two copies of one of the Hypo mutations, we do not consider them Hypos. So Hypo has two meanings (1) Hypomelanism generally refers to snakes with greatly reduced melanin, and (2) Hypomelanism in our hobby refers only to one of the respective Hypo gene mutations. So, while it would be correct to call a non-mutant corn that lacks melanin visually HYPOMELANISTIC, we only use the term Hypomelanistic (Hypo for short) for the mutants.

Good luck with your new acquisition.
Don
South Mountain Reptiles

.......as per usual!

hope you had a nice 4th my friend, and look forward to seeing you at Daytona!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

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