Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, I must admit, I am not the social butterfly I once was. I don’t hang out with a lot of people, in fact I don’t hang out with hardly anyone. I am what you may call Anti Social. I get upset if you call me during dinner or after 9pm at night, I don’t like 10 year old kids calling me by my first name (let alone calling me DAWG!!!) and if you are not my wife or my children, I may even ignore you LOL.

With all this hermit type of behavior I have apparently missed some new corn snake morphs out there. So can people please help me and let me know what these Morphs are:
1) Dream Corn- What is it, multi genetic trait or a Line bred corn through multiple generations of selective breeding, or a made up name?
2)Hypo Oketee- Now isn’t the purpose of an Oketee corn to get the bold black outlines around the nice red saddles on the pretty orange background? If it is Hypo you loose the trade make bold black bands right? Then isn’t it just a pretty normal corn at that point?
3) Lavender- I know this is not new, but what is the genetics behind it? Is it just a Ghost corn that has more of a purple tint to it or is there something else in there to?
4) SunGlow- Now a SunGlow Boa is an Albino x a Hypo and it gives it a very distinct look (both color and pattern are affected) what is the genes in a Sunglow Corn Snake?
5) Ruby Eyed Silver Ghost- Is this a real morph? The picture was horrible in the ad, but what I could see looked like a nice ghost corn in color. But if it has Ruby Colored Eyes isn’t it an Albino/Amel of some kind. Does this really exist as a morph?

I guess that is it. I probably should look through the ads more often and keep up to date better, but I am so dismayed by all the scams in the ad section that my blood pressure rises just looking at it!
Thanks for any info, now don’t bother me dang it! LOL
Thanks again
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

I can answer some of your questions. I've recently seen the dreams and just won't comment about those. Not interested in starting a battle.
Hypo Okeetee aka Sunkissed does seem like it would defeat the purpose of having an okeetee. However, if you check out the ones posted by Ronda, NW Reptiles, they are nice. Enough so that I produced one clutch of het for sunkissed this year. I bred my pure F1 female to a nice hypo male. I should be producing pure strain okeetees again next year, F3's. For this year, just the hets.
Sunglows are the product of selective breeding of amels. The best have orange and red only with no white and are very bright. Don had some pics on his site of some very pretty sunglows. Adam Block also produced some smoking motley sunglows. No white around the blotches nor on the sides, none at all, pure orange and red.
As far as lavender. No I don't think it is a ghost with a purple tint. I have not seen any yellow on mine like you do on a ghost around the neck. The ruby eyes are different also. When the recessive gene is paired up with the amel gene, opals are produced. I don't think you would get that if you added the amel gene to a ghost. I just put a clutch in the incubator. Aztec male lavender bred to motley amel.

Hoppy- I'm sure glad I'm not the only one having a hard time trying to keep with all the new names- morphs. I guess I'm an old timer too.lol.

lavender has nothing to do with ghost. In fact there is a hypo. version of lavender sometimes called a "cotton candy" corn It looks nothing like a ghost.

1) Dream Corn- What is it, multi genetic trait or a Line bred corn through multiple generations of selective breeding, or a made up name?
{I have yet to see any substantial proof but it is supposed to be a new form of hypo. I am just not convinced yet.}

2) Hypo Okeetee- Now isn’t the purpose of an Okeetee corn to get the bold black outlines around the nice red saddles on the pretty orange background? If it is Hypo you loose the trade make bold black bands right? Then isn’t it just a pretty normal corn at that point?
{Sunkissed is hypo B it popped up in Kathy’s okeetee line spontaneously it is not compatible with the regular Hypo A or Hypo C (lava)}

3) Lavender- I know this is not new, but what is the genetics behind it? Is it just a Ghost corn that has more of a purple tint to it or is there something else in there to?
{Lavender is a gene that was discovered By “Z” from a wild caught female that died egg bound}

4) Sunglow- Now a Sunglow Boa is an Albino x a Hypo and it gives it a very distinct look (both color and pattern are affected) what is the genes in a Sunglow Corn Snake?
{Line bred amel to produce a brilliant orange animal}

5) Ruby Eyed Silver Ghost- Is this a real morph? The picture was horrible in the ad, but what I could see looked like a nice ghost corn in color. But if it has Ruby Colored Eyes isn’t it an Albino/Amel of some kind. Does this really exist as a morph?
{Morph no the ruby eyes popped up in the first lavenders but they are not a reproducible trait that I can tell you can get a few in a clutch but it is not a simple genetic trait}

1) Dream Corn- What is it, multi genetic trait or a Line bred corn through multiple generations of selective breeding, or a made up name?

Tony has the dream corns. They are a type of hypo that popped up in his Okeetee lines I believe. He hasn't tested them out to any of the 4 currently known/named hypo lines and doesn't say he plans to. My bet is that it's a version of standard hypo. We don't know at this point. We have a female "dream" and she's a nice looking snake very much resembling a hypo Okeetee. We crossed her this year to the lava hypo. Results were all normals het "dream" and lava so it's not compatible with lava. We need to cross her on a sunkissed and on a standard hypo in upcoming breeding trials, but we're betting she's just a very nice standard hypo Okeetee.

As far as hypos go, there are currently 4 known and named hypos and several others that need to be crossed out to identify if they are truely one of the 4 or a new type of hypo. The 4 named ones so far:

Hypomelanism (aka hypo, standard hypo, hypo a) - the first and best known, used in making standard ghosts, etc. Simple recessive gene.

Sunkissed (aka hypo B, 'hypo Okeetee' - poor name, confusing) - popped up in Kathy Love's line of Okeetees. Not allelic to standard hypo. According to Rich Z this year, looks like homozygous for sunkissed and hypo gives you a lighter phenotype...looks like these two kids may be additive. Simple recessive gene.

Lava (aka trans, transparent hypo, hypo c) - Joe Pierce recently brought these guys to light in the last year or so, though he's been doing his background testing for some years. This year a huge combined effort was made to test cross this to everything...it is NOT standard hypo or sunkissed or ultra hypo. A very interesting hypo, this tends to erase much of the black leaving behind an almost see-through purplish faint marking where black should be. The pupils are still black. These guys also tend to almost look waxy or like they've had milk poured over them. There are pages and pages of threads on this gene on kornsnakes.kom/forums (change the k's to c's of kourse) so I'm not going to cut and paste it, the volume is too much. (Simple recessive gene)

Ultra hypo (aka hypo d) - a little mystery hypo currently, seems this bad boy may end up being an allele of one of the currently known traits...possibly amel, we'll see. Some interesting results are happening with this bugger...it's not just your standard simple recessive gene. Again, the best info and pics to date on this are in the thread "Ultra Mystery" by Kat on kornsnakes.kom/forums. Very good reading. (Unknown type at this point, suspected codominant and/or allelic to another trait)

Lots of fun will come from the hypo lines in the next several years, it'll be a blast keeping up with it.

2)Hypo Oketee- Now isn’t the purpose of an Oketee corn to get the bold black outlines around the nice red saddles on the pretty orange background? If it is Hypo you loose the trade make bold black bands right? Then isn’t it just a pretty normal corn at that point?

This depends on your definition. I've seen the term applied to both Standard Hypo Okeetees and to Sunkissed Okeetees. When dealing with these guys, you have to question the breeder to find out what version of hypo they truely have (if they know). Yes, they do tend to have thin borders, but they retain the bright, bold colors and the large red saddles of the Okeetee. Nice looking snakes in their own right.

3) Lavender- I know this is not new, but what is the genetics behind it? Is it just a Ghost corn that has more of a purple tint to it or is there something else in there to?

Lavender is a simple recessive mutant and has occasionally been referred to as anery d (with caramel being anery c). It changes the blacks to a steely/purplish grey color and wipes out the reds, although some orange strikes through in many of these around their yearling stage, but typically fades away in the adults. Adults are typically a purplish light gray color on white. Beautiful IMHO.

4) SunGlow- Now a SunGlow Boa is an Albino x a Hypo and it gives it a very distinct look (both color and pattern are affected) what is the genes in a Sunglow Corn Snake?

Sunglow refers to a look. A sunglow is a selectively bred amel to have no borders with bright oranges/reds that blend together. Their genetics are always homozygous amel, but some people use hypo to thin out the borders. Some sunglows are hypo amels while others are simply line-bred amels. Again, talk with the breeder about his/her line.

5) Ruby Eyed Silver Ghost- Is this a real morph? The picture was horrible in the ad, but what I could see looked like a nice ghost corn in color. But if it has Ruby Colored Eyes isn’t it an Albino/Amel of some kind. Does this really exist as a morph?

There have been some ghosts and some lavenders as well as many versions of hypos and hypo crosses that have hatchlings with ruby eyes. I have no personal experience with these, but from what I understand, many, if not most of the ruby-eyed hatchlings mature into a normal colored eye look as an adult. I don't know that anyone has hammered down this trait as to its genetic composition, but it isn't an amelanistic type eye color. The pupils are dark, the irises are a ruby color. Very pretty in the hatchlings, but honestly, I've never seen an adult one.
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~~~Hurley

I was going to answer Hoppy's questions but when I saw that Hurley responded, I knew she would answer his questions accurately.

Here is a link to the Dreams written by the creator. I suspect they are Standard Hypo Okeetees as well. Line Bred Hypo Okeetees I guess we could call them. When the wild Caught Okeetee the Dreams supposedly came from, was bred to an Okeetee from a “West Coast breeder”, hypos and amels were produced as F2’s. This is a very good indication that the West Coast Okeetee was het for amel and most likely het for Standard Hypo as well, unless we want to believe that the wild caught Okeetee was het for a new Hypo and Amel gene.

http://www.kingsnake.com/chesa/Dream Corns.htm

I would like to repeat that a Hypo Okeetee is not a Sunkissed, even though Sunkissed have been refered as such. A Lava Okeetee could also be referred to as a Hypo Okeetee. They are all hypos, but completely different genetic hypos have been used to create them.

Currently, a Lava Okeetee is just that, a Homo Lava with Okeetee background. A Lava Corn is an Out crossed Corn, with Okeetee influence.. A Hypo Okeetee is a Standard Hypo Okeetee, created by breeding an Okeetee X Standard Hypo. The Sunkissed Okeetees are a Hypo Okeetee, but created with the Sunkissed Hypo gene, Type B and has Okeetee background.

Many of the names of Hypos have evolved over time. The Sunkissed were once called Hypo Okeetee, but are known as Sunkissed now. The Lava Corns were called Transparent Hypos at one time, but are now Lava Corns. Since so many Hypo genes have been discovered in Corns, when you see “Hypo” by itself attached to a morph it is usually accepted that it is the Standard Hypo gene, type A that it is homo for.
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Joe Pierce
Snakes Alive!
"Home of the guaranteed feeders"
"If it won't eat, it is not worth a dime!"

The Sunglow gene in a cornsnake is much like the gene in a boa. To get a sunglow you breed the offspring of a Hypomelanistic x Albino together to get the Sunglow.

There are two different ways in which sunglows are supposed to be achieved in cornsnakes: By combining hypo with amel, and through linebreeding for less and less white markings.

Although I have heard of the former of these two ways being accomplished, I have a few problems with it. First, I have never seen one. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but I have never seen an actual sunglow, that was proven to be homozygous for both genes in question. Second, I don't know of anyone in particular, who bred their sunglows in this way. Again, that doesn't mean it has never happened, or that it is not happening today in the house next to mine ... It just means that it is not at all commonly done. Third, I HAVE seen oodles of sunglows that are the product of linebreeding, and I know literally dozens of breeders who DO produce sunglows via that method. So, if BOTH of those mthods are really being used, one wonders why we DO see so much of the one way, and so LITTLE of the other?!?!?

I think that when sunglows first came out in corns as a variation of the amel morph, many people initially assumed that the animals were double homozygotes, as the sunglows were in the worlds of other snake species. That initial assumption took hold, and it has been used as a way to make sunglows ever since. There may have even been a few breeders who tried this combination in order to get sunglows, but I imagine that their efforts were less than spectacular in results, because this has long since fallen by the wayside.

Today, I would hazzard a quess, based on the information I have been presented over the last few years, that well over 95% of all sunglows are NOT homozygous for hypo as well as amelanism. Further, I would also suspect that many of those sunglows which are homozygous for hypo are happy accidents as opposed to being the results of calculated breeding programs.
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Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
PO Box 254
Rogersville, MO 65742

Thanks for all the info, Some of you even mentioned additional morphs and told me what they are that I never knew were there. It is alot of good info and I thank you for your time spent!
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com