Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have been breeding my corns for a couple years now and im interested to find out, if possible, if my corns are het for anything. my first pairing between a male striped amel and a regular pattern amel female resulted in snows and regualar amels. the second time i used the same male except with a wild caught normal female which produced normals and type 2 anerythristic. the ratio was about 1:1 for both pairings. any ideas ???

thanks for the help

The two amelanistic corns are heterozygous for anerythristic. That is the only way that they could produce snows, which is a combination of amelanistic and anerythristic. I would expect more like a 3:1 nonsnow to snow ratio, though.

I think those type 2 anerythristic (AKA charcoal) babies were really anerythristic and not charcoal. That would make the mother heterozygous anerythristic. As none was amelanistic or snow, if you got more than 7 babies, then the odds are greater than 95% that the mother is not heterozygous amelanistic.

Paul Hollander

If the offspring were indeed charcoal though, what would that change about the amel father and normal mother.

>If the offspring were indeed charcoal though, what would that change about the amel father and normal mother.

If the offspring were charcoal, then the amelanistic father would be heterozygous charcoal, and the normal mother would be heterozygous charcoal.

The amelanistic male was used in both matings. To get all the reported babies, he would have to be amelanistic, heterozygous anerythristic, heterozygous charcoal. This would produce snows in the first mating with an amelanistic, heterozygous anerythristic female and charcoals in the second mating with a heterozygous charcoal female.

If the charcoal babies were actually anerythristics, then both the amelanistic male and the normal-looking female are heterozygous anerythristic. If the snow babies from the first mating were actually blizzards (amelanistic, charcoal) instead of snows (amelanistic, anerythristic), then both amelanistic parents are heterozygous charcoal.

So there you have it -- three possible scenarios.
1.
Male: amelanistic, heterozygous anerythristic, heterozygous charcoal
Female 1: amelanistic, heterozygous anerythristic
Female 2: heterozygous charcoal

2.
Male: amelanistic, heterozygous anerythristic
Female 1: amelanistic, heterozygous anerythristic
Female 2: heterozygous anerythristic

3.
Male: amelanistic, heterozygous charcoal
Female 1: amelanistic, heterozygous charcoal
Female 2: heterozygous charcoal

I don't know how to tell anerythristic babies from charcoal babies without a pedigree. If you do, please tell me.

Paul Hollander

I am not 100 percent, but to my knowledge the difference between anerythristic and charcoal is that anerythristics have small amounts of yellow usually located on or near the head. Charcoal's lack this trait. Again, not totally sure but everything I have read and seen has pointed in this out.

I haven't been on the web since Friday, or I'd have replied earlier.

I don't know of any better way to tell the difference between anerythristic and charcoal corns. From what I've read on the kingsnake.com corn snake forum, that is not 100% reliable in adults. and hatchlings need a few months to develop their red/yellow colors. Which makes identification of the babies more difficult than the adults.

Paul Hollander