Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay... I thought I understood motleys and stripe genes. THIS is what I understood to be true:

Stripe x Motley will result in all striped/motley offspring.... which is a fancy name for a bunch of babies with various patterns anywhere from motley, to a full stripe.

Stripe x Stripe will result in all striped offspring.

Striped Motley x Striped Motley won't usually result in the expected result of motleys, stripes, and striped motleys... but rather tends to result in weirder and weirder patterns.

SO.....

I have two clutches hatching now.... and they're driving me bonkers!

Both clutches were fathered by the same male. By every description I've read, he's a definate full homozygous stripe... NOT a motley stripe. But even if he WAS a motley stripe, it doesn't eliminate my confusion!

Clutch #1:
Male: Stripe, Het Amel
Female: Normal Het Motley (I bought this one from Kathy Love, so it seems unlikely to be untrue!)
Expected: 50% Motley Stripe and 50% normal het Motley.
So Far Hatched: 1 Amel, 8 normals, and one is not yet hatched.... but ALL are normal in pattern. Now, since he's a visible morph, and she's supposed to be het motley, I would suggest that she isn't het motley with these results (yes, I DO know that there are statistics involved here, so it's not IMPOSSIBLE... but it IS unlikely). But even if he isn't striped, but instead is a striped motely, I should have received the same results as predicted before.

Clutch #2:
Male: Stripe, Het Amel
Female: Stripe Anery (both stripes purchased from the president of hte local herp association)
Expected: 100% striped offspring het for Anery and possible het for amel.
Hatched so far: One baby so far has hatched out... a little normal with what looks like classic "motley striped" markings.

So tell me ... what is HAPPENING HERE???

Next year I can breed my female het motley to my motley snow, which should prove it completely..... but I'm so baffled.
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~Sasheena

Here is a comparison image of both striped and striped motley. Generally speaking, striped corns have a stripe that is a consistent width. While this is also possible for the striped motleys, striped motleys usually have stripes that change in width. The usual distinction between them is the width of the stripes. The striped corns USUALLY have dorso-lateral stripes that are only a scale or two wide and they border a dorsal area of ground color that is usually three to four scales wide. Striped motleys usually have a relatively narrow (one to two scale wide) dorsal stripe of ground color. There are variations of these characteristics in both.

This picture shows the difference between a striped corn and a striped motley.

South Mountain Reptiles

The normal here is the male, and the father of all three of my clutches. The female here laid 6 slugs and 6 good eggs, with one of those going bad. Her five babies should be all striped normals het for anery, and poss het amel. That is what I THOUGHT. Instead so far I have one "bow tie" splotch baby... it pulled out a few inches from the egg, but has since retreated, so I don't ahve a good photo. I haven't seen the rest... but the appearance of a non-striped baby quite surprised me!

The other clutch numbers are all in. The female is a normal het motley I purchased from Kathy Love. I expected to get some striped motleys from the clutch... and I got 1 amel (surprise surprise) and 9 normals. The 9 normals were all kinked and deformed save one perfect normal dead in his egg. The Amel is also perfect. But they are all NORMAL patterned individuals.

The final clutch is just the stripe male by a reverse okeetee, so the expected offspring are 50% het amel, and 50% amel, all 100% het stripe. They are due to hatch in a couple of days.

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~Sasheena

. . . nobody else visited your female corn in the night? LOL.

You had to go and muddy up the waters, eh? I don't know what the rest of the snakes' bodies look like, but from the little you showed, those appear to be striped corns. If one of them has some heavy cross-over markings between the stripes, that might be the problem. Otherwise, I now understand your confusion. Be sure to breed these same two snakes together next year making sure that no other snakes share the cage of the female the entire season. I've had customers tell me that they keep their snakes in same-sex communes. Males in one and females in another. Several of them found out that some lucky male (disguised as a female) in the female cage was having a blast when nobody was looking.

Don
www.cornsnake.NET
South Mountain Reptiles

The two snakes pictured are definately the parents. The anery (female) pattern fades to nothing about half way down her body, the normal has a beautiful consistant stripe like in the photo over his entire length.

I DID keep that female with up to three other snakes, but I'm pretty sure the other two "females" are females.... since they all laid eggs! And Hermes, the male, is the only male I have that is old enough to breed (and that had contact with the females).... I DO have one other male, he's a motley, but he's kept in another building.

The first baby came out fully....and the width of her stripe is VERY consistent with her parents, she just has a number of obvious breaks in her stripe. So my guess is she just doesn't have a very GOOD stripe. The second one is preparing to exit the egg, and the other three eggs haven't even pipped yet. It's a small clutch... I regretted my decision to breed her and hoped that the male hadn't "done the job" but she was gravid... but she had a very easy time and was the female who came through being gravid the absolute best! She had 6 slugs and 6 good eggs, and one of the good ones went bad. She's been growing like MAD ever since she laid those eggs and is now larger than the other two girls.

The "not so nice and broken up stripe" condition of these babies eases my mind that I do have normal striped snakes, and not some bizarre aberrant gene...... but would that say that the other female can't be het for motley if none of 10 babies showed any sign they were striped motley?

>>. . . nobody else visited your female corn in the night? LOL.
>>
>>You had to go and muddy up the waters, eh? I don't know what the rest of the snakes' bodies look like, but from the little you showed, those appear to be striped corns. If one of them has some heavy cross-over markings between the stripes, that might be the problem. Otherwise, I now understand your confusion. Be sure to breed these same two snakes together next year making sure that no other snakes share the cage of the female the entire season. I've had customers tell me that they keep their snakes in same-sex communes. Males in one and females in another. Several of them found out that some lucky male (disguised as a female) in the female cage was having a blast when nobody was looking.
>>
>>Don
>>www.cornsnake.NET
>>South Mountain Reptiles
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~Sasheena

If you're getting non motleys, non striped motleys and non stripers from that clutch, I'm at a loss to explain it. Every time I've bred a striped to a motley, I at least get motleys. I don't always get striped motleys so I'm not one of that advocates you'll get striped motleys. Every time I've bred motley to motley, I got motleys. Every time I've bred stripes to stripes, I got stripes. Therefore, if no other male was involved and it's not possible there was sperm retention from a previous season from a different male, I don't understand your outcome. It's a real head scratcher unless a different male was in contact with them. You said the other males you have are sexually immature. I bred a nine month male to a mine month female once and got nine eggs. Eight of them hatched out perfectly normal. The male was just over 21 inches long.
South Mountain Reptiles

I would give it one more carefully supervised breeding between that normal het motley female and a homozygous motley or striped male, before I made too many conclusions. I would definitely have expected at least SOME motley/striped babies in that clutch you described, but probabilities are not guarantees, as we all know. Maybe you just got unlucky this time around on that breeding.

However, it is also possible that Kathy simply made a mistake in her labeling of that corn. It doesn't happen often, when you're as professional as she is, but everyone makes mistakes. Your female may not be the het you think her to be. Also, I don't know how big she was when you got her from Kathy, but was she possibly exposed to a male before you had her? Something isn't adding up here, and it seems really likely that there is some other genetics in the mix about which you are currently unaware.

Keep us posted on the rest of your eggs, though. It will be interesting to see what hatches out. Full of surprises aren't they??? )
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Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
PO Box 254
Rogersville, MO 65742

Well here's what I know about the various "players" involved in this interesting spectacle...

Hermes and Athena were both purchased in the spring of 03 as '02 snakes, a male and a female, not related, the male possible het amel, the female just Anery, both striped. They were together for a little while after I brought them home, and were housed together before I bought them. I separated them when Athena wanted to eat Hermes. They were put back together in the spring and left together from around VAlentines day to the middle of April. Athena was separated out, laid her eggs, and has been alone since then. I do not know if she spent time with the male other than her current mate in the first 8 months of her life, but I had her since then and her "togetherness" with her mate is specific. She gained a LOT of weight after laying, growing FAST, so out of curiousity I placed my snow motley male with her to see if she was receptive (He's big for his age). He hid in a corner and she glared at him, and after a couple of minutes of watching them, where they didn't even touch, I removed him. She has had no other opportunity to breed since then.

Aphrodite, purchased also last spring. (can't buy just one corn.... buy two, then another then another, and then you're overrun!). I bought her at a reptile expo here in Arizona, chatted with Kathy, and brought my prize home. I dithered at the show over three different females, all the same price. I chose Aphrodite over the others because she was het motley and I knew enough about the genetics to know that I could get striped motleys from that combination. She was housed alone until Valentine's day, and then was placed in the communal tank with Hermes and Athena. She DID escape for a little while (4 hours?) during this time.... and I DID have a loose Ball Python AND a loose Rosy Boa, but I DON'T think they could have influenced her offspring. The motley snow which was my only other male this spring was out in the "mouse house" and had no opportunity to breed with her. (BUT... if he had.... I still should have gotten 50% motleys from the mix!)

This spring when I got a reverse okeetee, she was added to the mix for a few days, but then I removed the other girls and set them up in their own enclosures, so Hermes could do his thing with the new girl.

While I didn't closely supervise the breeding of Aphrodite and Hermes, I don't think it's likely that she could have been impregnated by any other snake in my collection.

Since Calypso, the reverse okeetee, is not het for anything to do with motley or stripe (that I am aware of) I cannot expect my final clutch to tell me much more to add to this story.

The outcomes so far:

Stripe x Stripe
2 normals with "broken stripes" but still look like stripers and not motleys
3 eggs unpipped (PIP already!)

Stripe x Normal het Motley
9 normals (almost all kinked)
1 Amel (not kinked)
ZERO motleys/stripes/striped motleys.

>>I would give it one more carefully supervised breeding between that normal het motley female and a homozygous motley or striped male, before I made too many conclusions. I would definitely have expected at least SOME motley/striped babies in that clutch you described, but probabilities are not guarantees, as we all know. Maybe you just got unlucky this time around on that breeding.
>>
>>However, it is also possible that Kathy simply made a mistake in her labeling of that corn. It doesn't happen often, when you're as professional as she is, but everyone makes mistakes. Your female may not be the het you think her to be. Also, I don't know how big she was when you got her from Kathy, but was she possibly exposed to a male before you had her? Something isn't adding up here, and it seems really likely that there is some other genetics in the mix about which you are currently unaware.
>>
>>Keep us posted on the rest of your eggs, though. It will be interesting to see what hatches out. Full of surprises aren't they??? )
>>-----
>>Darin Chappell
>>Hillbilly Herps
>>PO Box 254
>>Rogersville, MO 65742
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~Sasheena

Then either you were TERRIBLY unlucky in this breeding, or that female snake is not net for motley. Given Kathy's response below, that she got the snake she sold you from a friend of hers, I would be willing to bet on the latter, but you never know.

Unfortunately, when dealing with hets, you can really only prove the existence of a het with one breeding, not the absence of one.
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Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
PO Box 254
Rogersville, MO 65742

Yeah, it seems likely that she's not het for motley. (again, I do realize that there is always a possibility that random chance dictated this clutch being 0% Motley/Striped). Next year I'll still breed her to my Hurricane Snow Motley who might also be het or homozygous hypo, and if I get some hypos, I'll know they're at least het hypo...if i get all the normals as hypo, then I'll know more. She's a beautiful snake nonetheless, and she seems to be inclined to double clutch. She gave me at least 13 fertile eggs. Now I can only hope that all the defects I got in her clutch are not related to her genetics.... because if that is the case it's a real loss. (not to mention a real heartbreaker).
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~Sasheena

I ended up with a mixture. Some are motley, some are stripe, some are stripe and motley mixed...It blew me away too.

Whenever I breed motleys het. for stripe together, I get all of the above.
South Mountain Reptiles

Since motley and stripe share the same allele how can the snake be both homozygous for motley and het for stripe at the same time.I keep thinking I am starting to get a good handle on this stuff, but I keep learning something new.Thats what keeps the genetics so much fun though.

is that there are "striped motleys'.... snakes that are heterozygous for striped and motley, that can look completely motley. So I think he's saying that perhaps one of the snakes is actually a "hidden" striped motley .... looks motley and is sold as motley, but could actually have a stripe gene... one that might have been hidden in a number of generations before expressing itself.

It's a bizarre locus... I woulda loved some striped motleys from my clutch!

Now I just need to have my reverse okeetee be het motley...
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~Sasheena

It may or may not be accurate to say a motley can be het. for striped, but I look at the numbers. I have a pair of motleys I got from a guy years ago. For the past six years of breeding them, I get from 25% to 33% striped corns from each of their clutches. I also get motleys and striped motleys, but it's more than a coincidence that I get almost Mendellian percentages of purely striped corns. Never anything other than striped, striped motley or motley. It makes me think that though they (motley and stripe) share that locus, the motley is dominant over stripe. I don't have a large enough sample group to make this official. At this point, it's just my observation/experience. I'm equally helpless to explain how this combination of traits converts some of the motleys to striped motleys. Especially in light of the difference in widths and location of the stripes. Striped corns are predominantly ground color. On the contrary, striped motleys usually have more markings than ground. Again, motley seems dominant over stripe.

When someone calls a trait in corns "simple recessive", I sometimes snicker. Perhaps some of them used to be simple, but that seems to be changing. Of course, I understand the real meaning of "simple" associated with recessive, but had to put a little levity in there. This relationship between stripe and motley along with that of bloodred sure throw a wrench in the works.
South Mountain Reptiles

Kind of makes you wonder if Motley isn't a simple recessive trait and Stripe is a simple recessive modifier of the motley gene. In other words, Stripe never shows itself unless the animal is exhibiting the Motley pattern. Theoretically, in that case you could have Motleys het Stripe and you could have Normal patterned snakes homozygous for the Stripe modifier that won't exhibit Stripe since they aren't Motley.

Makes for some interesting brain candy. My bet is there is more than one modifier running around, too. The cubed Motley/bowtie/broken patterned Stripes and so on that are those strange indeterminite kids that didn't quite make Stripe make you wonder.

More fun and something to think about...if Stripe is a modifier gene, then Motley and Stripe aren't alleles, in fact, they wouldn't even have to be on the same gene, let alone near the same locus. It would account for Don's getting Mendalian results of Stripes from "Motleys het Stripe".

If this is the case (and if it were as simple as that...although life rarely is), you'd expect an F1 from a Stripe x non-Motley heritage snake crossed on a Stripe would yield Normals, Stripes, and Striped Motleys...1/2 Normals, 1/4 Stripes, 1/4 and Striped Motleys.

What have been the results out there when this cross has been made? (Normal from Stripe x Normal crossed on a Stripe)
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~~~Hurley

I had no idea that stripes and motley were so tied together. The thing I got that was really a surprise was a striped snow.

I didn't get a chance to read the whole thread (it's THAT time of year!), but I did want to remind you that the female you got from me was from a group that I got from a friend. She gave me all the info that I gave you about the animals, but I suppose it is possible that she was somehow mistaken, although she did show me the adults that were supposed to be related (can't remember exactly what I saw - it has been too long). So unfortunately I can't tell you any more about the ancestry than the info I gave you at the time.

Hope it all works out ok. I will be back on the forums more regularly once I have thinned out some babies!

Good luck!

Yeah, it seems likely there was a mistake. Though it could just be bad luck on my part. Time will tell. If she's carrying Hypo, and Anery in addition to Amel, that will make me feel better! Next year she goes with my snow motley, figure out some of her recessive genes.

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~Sasheena