Hello, my friend John Hannum had reached out to me about a list of morphs and localities you’re all trying to put together and wanted to see if could be of help. My son and I, Angel Argonza had worked with every gene available and almost every combo created, including several localities. I myself have been working with Pituophis for over 2 decades now. Though mainly my focus has always been with Melanoluecus. Over the years there has been a lot of confusion with bullsnake genetics and common morph names. It was agreed upon several years ago to do away with these morph names and list each morph by visual representation. Due to the fact that a lot of morph names were created when only a handful of genes were available. Here is one example, snow bull = whitesided albino. This was back when it was thought the whitesided gene was a true anery due to how it cancels out some but not all background color. It wasn’t long that the Omaha axanthic strain was discovered and then the Miami Co by John Cherry. Eventually a true snow was created and dubbed a lavender snow. With online information, and no books written on these genetics, it has been hard to avoid bringing back these old habits with newcomers to the species. So how I list my snakes : Lavender Ghost aka true ghost/Stillwater X Miami Co Axanthic. Listing the genetics is more important due to the fact that there are several albinos, 2 known recessive hypos, 2 axanthics, and 2 whitesided. Only the 2 whitesided genes are allelic. So it’s be a better practice to list what you have visually by each gene represented.
Now I remember a gentleman named John Mara(forgive me for misspelling) had created a full updated list of all genetics pinned at the top of the Pituophis Enthusiasts page on FB. Which many breeders including my son and I had helped to put together. What you will not find however are the common morphs names next to them as to do away with that practice. But I, myself find it hard to get away from it as this is what newcomers use as reference to identify each morph combo. As much as Dav’s list holds true to most of the genes available and combos made, some of the info is inaccurate. IE, Kingsville Red X Stillwater is not a firebull. But a Trumbower Hypo X Kingsville or Crumbly Red. A Stillwater X Kingsville Red or Crumbly Red was known as a “Flame Bull”. Coined by the man who made popular and also brought both the Kingsville TX locale line and erythrism from that line, along the Stillwater hypo into the hobby, John Ginter. Another erythiristic gene used is from Amarillo lines and of course the famous Crumbly bulls aka Crumbly reds made famous by Scott Crumbly. I believe that is the line being referred to on this thread as “crumbles.” It’s called a “Crumbly red”. I’ve worked with all these lines since I started with Pituophis and still do to this day. Lets try and clear things up some so here is a list of known available genes:
There’s are 3 known albinos and have proven to be incompatible. Though one hasn’t really been tested with the others as its fairly new.
1.Craig Trumbower aka Lubbuck TX line
2.Dav Kaufman’s aka Amarillo TX line
3.A new one discovered by Joseph Forks from TX locale just a few years ago(not to be confused with his SonoranGopher gene known as the Forks gene)
2 Axanthics strains and both are incompatible
1.Miami Co aka Silver bulls discovered by John Cherry
2.Omaha Axanthic aka Gary Ballum line(which came out of the original “Speckled Bull” which is now known as the “patternless gene”.
2 Whitesided strains and are the only ones that are allelic
1.Trumbower strain(clean white wall sides)
2.Gary Ballum strain(speckled sides)
Several Erythristic and all are polygenic coming from several TX lines. I will list the ones I’ve worked with
1.John Ginter’s Kingsville TX
2.Scort Cumbly’s Red (I had just recently met Scott in person and finally got the history on this line. It’s unknown locale and he had purchased the founders from a Maryland expo decades ago)
3.Amarillo TX
One Xanthic gene
1.Envy Reptiles Yellow bull lines(originated from F1 South TX bulls. I had Jason Nelsons founding pair. Massive 7ft bulls.)
One Patternless gene
1.Omaha Pattarnless aka Omaha Speckled bull and now known as “patternless bull”
2 Tiger genes
1.The original comes from John Ginter’s Kingsville TX line and is inherited by line breeding or inbreeding. Basically a polygenic trait, first dubbed by KJ Lodriguez. Named after his home town baseball team in Louisiana. This is also what is now being called a zipper. It’s actually been around a while and commonly found within wild caught populations. I’ve worked with this original line. Can also be seen in some red bull lines like John Hannums reds.
2. Zipper by John Skager. Created by selective breeding bulls with high blotch counts. Im now starting to see it in kater generations of my Stillwater/Kingsville red/Miami Co, Lavender Ghost line.
2 Recessive hypos and both are incompatible
1.Stillwater hypo discovered by Adam Marty and spread though the hobby by John Ginter
2. Trumbower hypo first produced by Craig Trumbower in his efforts to try and produce the first “snow bull” combo. Now this gene is very variable.
The Trumbower hypo is variable even within each clutch alone. I can prove that with 2 sibling hypos I had from old Trumbower lines. These were never crossed with any other lines. The default color can effect how the gene will look visually eapecially with amount of melanism within the default color. Due to this many breeders have produced different variants and had thought they had a new gene. Called everything from T Pos bulls, Caramel bulls, Raspberry bulls, and now Hannum hypo. Which I’ve proved out this year is just a red variant and have been able to replicate it outcrossing to an old Trumbower line holding only 3 of the original Trumbower genes. I believe other test from breeders to be inconclusive due to their lines have high possibility of having both hypo genes. As many breeders in oast had started combining these lines unkowing that the hypos were incompatible. The original pairing of Jason Nelson’s albino reds was a Kingsville Red X Trumbower albino by John Ginter. Any Trumbower gene will have the possibility of passing either a whitesided or hypo from Trumbower’s line. In this case the hypo manifested within John Hannums group. Any or anyone that works with Jonel Lopez line have a possibility of carrying both hypos, though he mainly worked with the Stillwater hypo. I had Jonel’s original trio that founded his multi gene line. Which is why test with this line can yeild inconclusive results with the hypos from John Hannums stock. Anyone looking to get more info on my test results on this line, you can find it on Bullsnake group or Pituophis Enthusiasts group.
There are also natural hypos like one within John Ginter’s Kingsville red line. Though no test has been done on it, but several in each clutch from John’s locale line will yeild offspring that will produce little to not melanin. Rather replaced by maroon to dark purple like blotches on the posterior area. Bulls within the southern part of their range in TX can be found with little melanin.
Hope this helps clear up a lot of questions on bullsnake genetics.
Tani Argonza
