Firstly for newer corn snake lovers wanting to know what we are talking about here’s the link to the Morphmarket Trait page and description of this trait that goes by many names. I will be continuing to use the term aberrant for all of these names (zigzag, zipper, Aztec) just to keep it more simple and because aberrant is what I knew it was 20 years ago.
https://community.morphmarket.com/t/morphpedia-corn-snakes-zigzag/24559
I just want to get into a good discussion about this. I want to know what experiences other breeders have had with these and share my own experience with them. I brought this back up because the clutch I had been waiting on just popped and literally every baby is a low expression aberrant with one medium low expression in the mix. I do believe I have 2 or 3 aberrant Tessera in this mix as well. I will be posting photos as we go.
The lineage history on this clutch isn’t much to look at. Most of my corns are related to a now passed on 20 year old classic male (Ares) that I think I need to re edit his traits now. I’m still trying to figure out from his offspring if he had any surprise hets lol. The other matriarch that most of my stuff is related to is a still living 20+ year old ghost corn with the masque trait (Casper) who I also may have to update her traits. She throws weird colors and increased frosting in the saddles making me think she could be related to ultra, creamsicle, gray rat hybrid stuff. I don’t know the parentage of either of these corns.
I have to get into breeding history of those two old farts so stay with me or skip by the next few paragraphs.
The classic male Ares has produced low expression to high expression aberrant/zigzag corns with every partner he has been with. Two of his four past partners had no expression of their own. About a quarter of their clutches were high expression with the rest either being no expression but still carrying aberrant genes. Unfortunately those 3 other females were when he was breeder loaned to SUNY Cobleskill for a reptile club to use. They didn’t keep the records and photos of babies both dead or alive like I do now. I have photos of the females though. The only reason I know what his partners produced is because I had helped to found that club and watched the head members at the time work with them. I wrote down the results of those clutches at the time but they threw out the frozen dead babies ( because the big new incubator fried them days before hatching ) so I didn’t get the photo evidence. Thankfully I had written things down in IHerp.
With me however Ares again produced low, no, to medium expression aberrant corns. Though I’m starting to wonder if they really aren’t no expression at all.
Casper the ghost is in a similar position in which I don’t know her genetic history. Whereas I bought Ares 20 something years ago as a juvenile or large hatchling size, Casper was given/surrendered to me by SUNY Cobleskill. The previous owner had given her and her tank mate and Amel male at the time to the school club thinking they would use them for breeding. However the club wanted to do “tiger” corns based off of their school mascot. So they wanted okeetees basically with high orange and black bands. Ares was accepted but Casper was not needed so they rehomed her to me. HOWEVER the previous owner was still at that school so I got her history through him. He bought her from a pet store in Upstate NY (I call it middle of the state but whatever) and had her and that Amel male since they were babies. She doesn’t look like she has any aberrant expression either. However she too has produced medium to low quality aberrant corns with three different partners. One partner was Ares, one was the Amel male, and the last was a line breeding I did with her son trying to prove hidden stuff with them out.
The other male that is related to most of my stuff is a striped tessera male from Richard Hume. I have all of his history and knowledge of his genes. He was never noted to have aberrant stuff going on in his lineage. He’s sired four clutches with me and this latest clutch this year is the one with 100% aberrant babies of varying degrees.
—End of paragraphs of history----
It dawned on me to look back at all the photos I’ve taken of the old and current corns related to all the visual aberrant stuff and I realized pretty much all the corns I thought had no expression did have odd patterning on the side of their neck only. Some was barely noticeable due to their color and pattern. Others it was clearly different.
Now I know motley and stripe hets can still cause odd neck patterning. I also know that tessera can make odd patterns and colors even in normals. That makes sense for all of my corns coming from the striped tessera. However both Ares and Casper do not have motley or stripe hets. It’s not 100% because odds are always a pain but from the test pairings I’ve done trying to figure that out we haven’t hit either motley or stripe from either of them. Then with the kids and grandkids we haven’t hit that either. So I’m relatively sure.
I need to wait for these kids to shed for a better look at them but I’ll try to compile all the aberrant neck pattern photos of the adults and the various babies. Those will be below. I’m also quite sure I hit two aberrant Tessera but that’s not special. I remember seeing someone producing them in Facebook as well as some in morphmarket. I thought I got striped tessera babies at first when their heads were sticking out of their eggs, but then the patterns popped back in towards the upper half of the body to the end.
One other thing. My corns that produced this oddly strong but low expression aberrant line are from 2003-5 ish and I don’t know if anyone kept an eye on their lines in NY state or not. That might help me figure out their history a bit idk. As I said before Casper is the real odd one producing some weird colors. I’m suspecting ultra maybe, tequila sunrise more so as her high yellows over the nose, head, and neck track with that, or other gray rat hybrid stuff. I just don’t know if anyone had that stuff AND aberrant pattern being put together. I have two amel females now growing out to pair to Casper’s son Fides (Also a very pastel pink and yellow ghost) to see if ultra is in that mix.
Really just trying to start a more in depth Aztec zigzag discussion. I want to know what other people have seen and done with them. I love the wide stripe stuff I see on Morphmarket. That might be my next future purchase is a high expression aberrant of some kind since I’m already apparently working with them.
Photos to come soon.
Photos of Casper mind you she’s 22, lost all her pastel colors, and going blind.
Old photo of Ares RIP (I never took side view photos of him apparently I looked in all my places but he really didn’t look aberrant whatsoever) Ares has produced the highest quality Aztecs babies of these three adults despite not being aberrant.
Photo of Apollo. These are my main contributors bloodline wise.
