Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Being a complete novice with cornsnake genetics, despite all the reading, (scientific terms really confuse me sometimes) though I understand the dom/sub trait and het genetic terms, I just can't remember what sort of genetic makeup a ghost corn has.

I have a female ghost corn and plan to breed her in a year or so (she's barely 14" long now, so breeding is out for at least another season, more like two) and I don't know if she's het for anything else. What sort of combinations would produce the best results? Say, if I cross her with a charcoal or red type amel? OR what would the better combination be?

I'll give it a go (and I'm still a beginner after all these years, so you're in good company!).

Ghost is a combo of Hypomelanism (Type A) and Anery (Type A). Charcoal is Anery Type B and as the two types of Anery are incompatible (I think? Anybody?), you'd end up with all Normal-looking hatchlings. HOWEVER, assuming neither parent is carrying unknown hets, they'd all be carrying hets for Hypomel (Type A), Anery (Type A) and Charcoal (Anery Type B). Now if you kept the offspring and bred two of those to each other, the second generation would be potentially be a wild mixture of Normals, Hypomels, Anerys, Charcoals, Ghosts and Phantoms.

If you bred your Ghost with an Amel (the red form would just be a line-bred trait rather than any specific het), your offspring again assuming no unknown hets, would be all Normal in appearance with hets for Amel, Anery (Type A) and Hypomel. The second generation of you bred two of those, could produce Normals, Amels, Hypomels, Anerys, Snows and Ghosts.

If you can find a mate with a couple of hets, a whole range of possibilities opens up. Exciting stuff!

If the ghost were bred to an amel, and then you bred the resulting offspring to one another, you would also have the 1 in 64 chance of getting an animal that was triple homzygous for anery A, amel, and hypo A...otherwise known as a coral snow.

Other than that, your prognostication was perfect!

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Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
PO Box 254
Rogersville, MO 65742

Ah drat! Thanks Darrin. Every time I think I've got it, a new combo pops up. One that needs to be added to the Progeny Predictor software *cough*!

You should download Marcel Poots MP Corn genetic wizard. Play with it and see what could be the possibilities…

http://www.marcelpoots.com/ go for Programming, then MP Genetics.

All the best…

Thanks for the info, will deffinitely keep it in mind. Hopefully by the time my ghost is ready to breed, I will have a much better understanding of genetics. Probably will have more in my corn collection by then to, to try out different combinations.