Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone know what happened to the ones the infamous rainwater had?
Anyone acquire them or produce their own?
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"Quality isn't Quality without customer service so I guess I sell quality"

I believe the so-called calico corns turned out to be animals that were diseased in some way, eventually exhibiting blisters on their scales as their "calico" progressed. If I am not mistaken, most breeders put their stock down a while back.

As to the piebald corns, I am not certain whether you are referring to the same animals that Rainwater had as calicos, or if there was another line he called piebald, but I am not aware of that line if there ever was one.

I do know of one honestly piebald cornsnake, however, I believe it is owned by Frank Pinello, and it is a bloodred female with white patches on it. It is exactly what a piebald would be expected to look like, given what one can see in the ball python market. I believe the animal is actually a tyrosinase positive specimen, but that will only be proven by genetic testing. I also believe that Frank is going to be performing some breeding trials to see about the inheritability of the condition, but she may not be big enough to breed until next year.
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Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
PO Box 254
Rogersville, MO 65742

I know of calicos and have seen some, but I am curious as to what happened to rainwaters piedballs. They were not white blotches, imagine a corn with a whole 2-3 inches solid white all the way around the body, in four to five places....not white fleckling and simialr, but white completely incircling the snake.
If you look at old reptiles magazines at his ads, you will see them int he ads.
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"Quality isn't Quality without customer service so I guess I sell quality"

I know that some of the animals known as "calico" were not necessarily tied tot he health problems exhibited by others. It is my understanding, however, that the Rianwater lines were the ones causing all of the problems for the others.

As for his piebalds, what you describe are what I have seen on Frank Pinello's bloodred female. I was unaware that Rainwater had similar animals at one time. But then again, a lot of what he did was before my time...Thanks for the info!
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Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
PO Box 254
Rogersville, MO 65742

There was only one and he featured it in a calendar and on his site. It was a hatchling that had one white spot on it. That white spot was located on a bump in the spine of the animal and I suspect malformed viscera in that location could have been the cause for its premature death. It only lived a few months.

It was not pied in terms of heridity. It was simply a deformed corn snake. Whatever caused the lack of pigmentation in that area was surely the stimulus for the hump at the same place and if a necropsy had been done, I suspect they would have discovered a polar condition. That is, I suspect whatever caused the hump and white patch probably also caused the death of the snake via visceral failure.

I've hatched a couple of snakes with that kind of white patch on them. In both cases, it was associated with health problems. I don't think it's that different from a birth mark on a human. Just a pigment defect during development. Given the coincidence of the hump in the same place, I think it's safe to say that condition was not heritable. Suffice it to say, the term pied or piebald really does not yet pertain to corns. Until someone can predictably and successfully produce more than one filial generation of corns with such pigment variations, the corn snake family album still lacks that "morph".
South Mountain Reptiles