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Ok, i keep hearing about cornsnake morphs that are products of crosses with an Emory's rat snake. I have a couple questions about this.
1) If a cornsnake is crossed with an Emory's rat snake is it still a cornsnake?
2) Also will it affect it's temperment or behavior?
3) Is an Emory's rat snake a corn snake or a different species of snake?

thanks for your help

Did your new little albino shed yet? There was a question about what morph he/she was. Would like to see new pic.
Thanks
Chuck

ya it shed and it's a beautiful amelanistic corn. i will take some pics, but as my earlier post said, now that it has shed i can see the mites that the breeder lied about. So the last 3 days have been spent trying to cure the mites and calling the vet to see if i need to make an appointment. But the mites seem to be diminishing in number, but i still have the snake in a temporary enclosure untill i am sure that i have completly treated it's terrarium, and the snake itself.

Sorry to hear about the mites. I hear provent-a-mite is the way to go. I hope it doesn't become to big a problem for you or your snakes. If its not to late make sure to keep the new snake in a separate room from your other snakes and good luck getting rid of them.
Chuck

Currently i have 2 snakes, 1 and then my new one(both corns). They are in seperate rooms for space and quarintine issues. I have heard that certain over-the-counter cures for mites could be dangerous for reptiles, so i am currently just bathing the snake to drown the mites. This has killed about 60% of the mites but their still kinda bad. The vet said if this didn't work to use prevent-a-mite. thanks for your concern and the information.

i have also benn checking my other corn daily and he is still mite free(THANK GOD). I also spent about 4-5 hours today cleaning the infected snake's enclosure very thouroghly. And i have been making sure non of the soap or chemical residue remains.

well the mites are like completly gone, so i decided to see if she was hungry and she ate the pinky(only had her for a week). But i will try and post some pics soon i just started school, and for some reason all my teahcers want to load me with homework so it may be a little while.

Emoryi is a subspecies to the corn snake. No this should not change the temperment of the snakes. A cross between a corn and a great plains rat snake sould be called a creamsicle at least the albinos. I'm not to sure on the non albinos. May be someone can help out. I know draybar breeds creamsicles. I hope this helps.
Chuck

>>Emoryi is a subspecies to the corn snake. No this should not change the temperment of the snakes. A cross between a corn and a great plains rat snake sould be called a creamsicle at least the albinos. I'm not to sure on the non albinos. May be someone can help out. I know draybar breeds creamsicles. I hope this helps.
>>Chuck

I think Draybar also breeds the cinnamon morph, which I'm trying to do. The cinnamon would be a corn X GP rat cross which is hypomelanistic. I'm using a hypo Miami Phase corn and am going to breed it to a Southern Great Plains Rat.

I don't think you can call these crosses a corn snake any longer, because most folks don't consider the corn and GP rat the same kind of snake. This question has even the experts confused because the debate's been going on for years whether there's one species, two, or even three (slowinskii). Creamsicles have been around for almost as long as amels, but cinnamons are relatively new. There's also crosses that are not morphs. I think most understand the creamsicle is a cross, but breeders need to be up front about selling other crosses/hybrids.

To answer another question, there are many different types of corns and GP rats. Here's a few of the most divergent types: Miami corn, Okeetee corn, Keys ratsnake, Emory's ratsnake, Southern Plains ratsnake (meahllmorum), and the Western Plains rat (intermontana). Some people think these snakes can be very different. The guttatus complex is very involved and getting moreso as time goes on because the GP rats are becoming more popular and more and more locality morphs are being introduced.

I gotta run...off to work...be back tonight. Good luck with that.

TC

A Southern Great Plains Ratsnake from Hebbronville stock...

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Ratsnake Haven: Calico and hypo Chinese beauty snakes, Mandarin ratsnakes, Chinese twin-spotted ratsnakes, South Korean Dione's ratsnake, Great Plains ratsnakes and corns

great looking Great plains rat snake.
Chuck

>>>>Emoryi is a subspecies to the corn snake. No this should not change the temperment of the snakes. A cross between a corn and a great plains rat snake sould be called a creamsicle at least the albinos. I'm not to sure on the non albinos. May be someone can help out. I know draybar breeds creamsicles. I hope this helps.
>>>>Chuck
>>

>>>>>>draybar>>>>>>>>>>
I have seen the "normal" corn/great plains rat snakes called Rootbeers.
I think that was coined due to the brownish tint this mix seems to produce.
I think most breeders would recognize the name rootbeer as this mix.
My creamsicles (amelanistic corn/great plians rat) are just as calm as any other corn snake or even more so.
The Great plains rat snake in the mix has done nothing to change their temperament as far as I can tell.
>>>>>>>>>>
There are times when people will add corn to the end of the name but usually the name alerts you to the cross.

Most everyone knows creamsicle "corns" are amelanistic corn/great plains rat mix
Not quite as many, but a lot of people know rootbeer "corns" are the normal corn/great plains rat mix
Even less recognize cinnamon "corn" as the hypomelanistic corn/great plains rat mix but we are working on that.
Hopefully cinnamon will be as recognizeable as a corn/great plains rat indicator as creamsicle is.
No mater which corn/great plains rat combination it is, or any other combination, intergradation or hybridization it is,
this must always be made clear to any person these snakes will be going to.

I don't know if I cleared anything up or just rambled.
I just got home from work and have quite recovered yet....LOL
How about a shot of one of those Cinanamons
a hatchling

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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"resistance is futile"
Jimmy (draybar)

Draybars Snakes

I knew you breed creamsicles but wasn't sure about the others.
By the way that cinnamon is a real beauty.
Thanks again,
Chuck

Jimmy, I don't think I've ever seen one of those "root beers". Do you have a picture? Are they a cross bt. an emoryi and a guttatus from different areas of the country?

TC

This is a (hypo guttatus) X meahllmorum cross. I'm working towards cinnamons, but want to be heavy on G.P. rat side eventually....

>>Jimmy, I don't think I've ever seen one of those "root beers". Do you have a picture? Are they a cross bt. an emoryi and a guttatus from different areas of the country?
>>
>>TC
>>
>>
>>This is a (hypo guttatus) X meahllmorum cross. I'm working towards cinnamons, but want to be heavy on G.P. rat side eventually....
>>
>>

Terry,
I am not sure if there is any kind of locale designation or recognition. I have never seen mention of such.
I have just seen corn/great plains rat or guttata/emoryi normals listed as or referred to as rootbeers.
Not a lot of help am I?

Nice looking snake.

I found this old thread
http://forums.kingsnake.com/viewarch.php?id=591740,593249&key=2004
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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"resistance is futile"
Jimmy (draybar)

Draybars Snakes

Thanks for the link, Jimmy. I've always been a little confused at the mention of root beers. It took awhile, but I read the strand you linked. Seems they're just a cross bt. guttatus X emoryi, no morphs, no localities. I used to think maybe they were some kind of TX corn, or Kisatchie, with people thinking they were natural intergrades with emoryi. Anyway, that's cleared up for me, and I appreciate the help. More later...TC.

PS: According to this definition of root beer, the pic I posted would be a root beer too, wouldn't it?

>>PS: According to this definition of root beer, the pic I posted would be a root beer too, wouldn't it?
>>

As far as the definition has gone so far I would have to say yes it would be considered a rootbeer.
Hopefully a distinction might be made to differentiate emoryi/corn mixes from meahllmorum/corn mixes...etc

Of course, I have seen amelanistic corn/grey rat (guttata/spiloides) mixes called creamsicles and that didn't seem right.
It did, by name, indicate intergrade or hybrid but unfotunately it idicated emory instead of spiloides.

As far as I have been able to tell there hasn't been a lot of thought put into classifying or separating the corn/rat snake mixes.
It seems that a lot of people avoided it due to the general disdain for intergrades or hybrids or whichever you prefer.
I personally prefer intergrade because they can and have bred in the wild.
I am not a big fan of some of the mixes like black rat to corn but we already know the stunning results that can occour through great plains/corn mixes.

So, I do not claim to be an expert by even the slightest stretch of the imagination, or have many answers or a lot of experience, YET, but I am learning as I go and hope to learn more and more every day.

how about a shot of my male cinnamon

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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"resistance is futile"
Jimmy (draybar)

Draybars Snakes

Nice snake.

Actually, that snake looks like it has more corn in it than G.P. rat. I prefer Great Plains ratsnakes, myself, and I thought corn snake people didn't differentiate much between "emoryi" and "meahllmorum". Also, I see them as subspecies, rather than full species, so I call them crosses, rather than hybrids. I plan to use my hypo corns to cross with the Brazos Island Ratsnake, and make a cinnamon Brazos Island, eventually. I think it will look a bit different from your cinnamons, but by definition I expect they'll still be cinnamons. I'll have to tell people what the Brazos Island rats are though, I'm sure.

There are an awful lot of options within the guttatus complex, eh, Jim? We have the amel. emoryi now which will be bred into several different locality G.P. rats in the next few yrs. I have that project in mind. Then you could do a "reverse-creamsicle", using an albino emoryi with the different amel. gene. Meahllmorum has several different locality morphs people are starting to work with, and the intergrade zone bt. meahllmorum and emoryi is huge. I suppose folks will be breeding intergrades bt. those two before long too. What are we going to do? I hope folks realize the importance of keeping different locale specific snakes separate, so we don't lose the uniqueness of each. Record keeping, and the source of your parent animals, is important I think, or a lot of people won't buy from us.

Thanks for the post....TC.

1. No it will not still be a cornsnake. That pairing will produce animals that are hybrids between the Emoryii and Cornsnake.

2. No, it will not affect its temperment in any detectable way simply as result of the cross, but Emoryii, like corns have a wide range of individual temperments, and anything is possible for a given individual.

3. No, emoryii is not a subspecies of corn. Emoryii, as of the most recent classification, has been elevated to its own species status. This occurred at the same time that the latin designation for cornsnake was altered to Pantherophis Gutattus.
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Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
PO Box 254
Rogersville, MO 65742

>>3. No, emoryii is not a subspecies of corn. Emoryii, as of the most recent classification, has been elevated to its own species status. This occurred at the same time that the latin designation for cornsnake was altered to Pantherophis Gutattus.
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>>Darin Chappell

Darin,

I wouldn't mind treating the Great Plains rat, Pantherophis guttatus emoryi, as a separate species, P. emoryi, if it were official, but as far as I know most taxonomists/herpetologists still consider emoryi to be a subspecies of P. guttatus. I know that some group is claiming separate species status for them (is it CNAH?), but I've seen nothing in the literature to suggest they've published on this, or presented any data. All the recent literature I've seen, including Vaughan et al's revision of the Texas guttatus, and the most recent taxonomic publication, Utiger et al, 2002, recognizes only one species. Utiger et al, were the ones that split the Elaphe and introduced the name Pantherophis for guttatus, vulpinus, bairdi, and obsoletus. Not only did they not recognize emoryi as a separate species, but they didn't recognize two species of fox snakes either, which (CNAH) does. If emoryi does become a separate species and is accepted, it would be very convenient for hobbyists and others, but as of now I can't use that classification, even if I wanted to. If someone publishes, with convincing data for the new classification, I will use it.

Thanks for listening...TC