question about "zig-zag" corns

How does the zig zag gene work? Is it a simple recessive like amelanism or does it act more like a co-dominant trait? Have an 02 female corn thats mother was said to be @ 80% zig zagged and I'm wondering if it be worth getting a zig zag male to try to prove it out (ahh, its just an excuse to get another snake). Thanks all and peace, Chris

All I know about zigzag came out of McEachern's Corn Snake Colors and Patterns booklet, and that isn't as much as I'd like. Anyway, AFAIK, zigzag is a recessive mutant that is somewhat variable in phenotype expression. It would probably benefit from a few generations of selection. Hope this helps.

The zig-zag, zipper, and Aztec patterns really don't behave 100 percent as a single genetic recessive trait. They actually act more as a selectively bred trait, which is really how they came about.

Several people worked on this project basically in parallel and those animals were produced by selectively breeding animals that exhibited this pattern. Each subsequent generation was chosen from the clutches selecting for the animals that had more and more of this sought after pattern anomaly.

I have had situations where I have bred excellent examples of Aztecs (sorry, I just tend to use that term) together and gotten ALL normal looking animals. Maybe just a trace of elongated blotches or connected blotches, but nothing at all like either of the parents. That tends to indicate that it is NOT a single recessive trait, but certainly there is no way I would go so far as to say that there cannot be more than one gene that causes the Aztec pattern and they are now intermingled. This would not be the first time that something like this bit me where the sun don't shine.

Paul and Rich, thanks mucho's for your input...Just gonna have to find as "ziggy" a male as possible and trust to luck and the snake gods

From what I can see of your snake's pattern in your pic, "Ziggy" looks like there may be some zigzag influence. If you could post a pic showing most of your snake's pattern, we could judge her a little better. If she does show a little zigzag, then you have a better chance of producing zigzag offspring if you bred her to another zigzag. It's not a guarantee, but slightly better odds.

The fun thing about breeding zigzags is that you're never sure of what you might get. This 2002 amel partial zigzag/aztec is from my amel zigzag female and just a "plain" snow male. And like Rich said, just because you bred 2 patterned snakes doesn't guarantee patterned ofspring!

This pic was taken in June '03. She was a very small hatchling and took a long time to really start growing. She's at least doubled her size since this pic!

Not too much "zig" to her, but like y'all have already said, anythings possible :*)...peace all, Happy Holidays

I didn't help matters by using several sources to produce my zigzags back when I first got interested in doing the project.
My best zigzags came from a pair of Florida WC's that a fellow down in Davie, FL bred together. The parents were amazingly similiar and taken from the same spot but they were both completely normal looking. They kept throwing a small number of babies each clutch that had a few blotches the were connected in that zigzag pattern. Their patterns were very clean and the babies had varying amounts of the zigzag. The guy in Davie considered them inferior because they didn't have the perfect patterns he was looking for. I'm not certain of it, but I think Bill Love knew who this person was and he may have obtained some offspring from this fellow too. I remember showing Bill some of my zigzags that were from that guy while I was down there and I vaguely recall him being interested in the possibilities but I'm not sure he had begun any work on that morph yet. If I had just stayed with that line everything might be simpler now but I eventually used an animal that i got from Rich Z that happened to catch my eye because of some connected blotches. Turns out this animal not only contributed some nice aberrancy to the patterns of offspring but also managed to contribute to the 2nd Lavendar to come into existence. Well, if I had kept it down to just those 2 sources maybe we'd still have a chance to figure this out. But I also used some additional unrelated animals that I already had beforehand which was what got me interested in the whole idea in the first place. But it was apparent that a couple things were at work even at that early stage, sometimes in combination. I think I remember talking to Rich Z about it even then which sort of caused a problem in trying to name them. No name seemed to always fit. Some looked more like zippers, some more like zigzags and then some were just completely aberrant. I actually liked them the most as each was so unique like a piece of art, especially if it happened to be amel or anery. And then to top it all off I wind up with Lavendar which Rich nor I could adequately explain at the time! I remember names like cocoa, chocolate, purple, mocha and ruby-eyed being tossed about. What a genetic mess! Well, thems the good ole' days I guess. As wierd as it was it seems simple compared to what's out there now eh? Anyways, please accept my apologies for being so ignorant at the time. If I had known so many people were gonna be liking these I would have been a lot more careful about keeping the various strains separate. and then of course, there is Bill Love that eventually produced some using whatever foundation stock he was able to obtain. Back when people first became interested in zigzags I'm not sure that people differentiated much between his line or my line. So that represents at least 4 possible lines of ancestory that we know of that are probably mixed together to produce the current offerings of zigzags.

Wow, thats a lot to digest, especially when I tried to read it around 1:30 earlier this morning!...In your breeding trials, out of the pairs that seemed to consistently throw aberrant patterns, did they hatch out as "just" zig-zags or "just" Aztecs, or was there a mix of both?...Rich said above that he had zigged or Aztec pairs throw pretty much normal patterned babies, <wonders out loud> if these maybe were F1 siblings or from unrelated lines?...Hehe its kinda like detective work, working backwards from the "crime scene" to the "perps" (no offence all, just an analogy here)...Better to try now than in 20 years







ps We forgive you and thanks much for an very informative post...

I have no idea whose "line" my female amel zigzag is from. My normal zigzags came from an aquaintance who had bred his 2 wild-caught corns. I saw both parents and they each had a small zigzag pattern (only about 2-3 saddles connected). I purchased the entire clutch of 23 hatchlings. Of those, only 5 showed any pattern. One had amost a perfect wide stripe down the center of her back. I kept those 5 plus another female (2.4 total). I did some inbreeding and out-crossing over the past several years. Most of the inbreeding trials produced some terrific patterns, but unfortunately, survival rate in those offspring was fairly low. Over the years, I lost 1.2 of the original zigzags (naturally, the best patterned). Any patterned offspring that I have kept (and survived to reproduce) are from the out-crossed breedings. I have yet to determine if this line is compatable with my amel (last year, the female totally refused the male I chose for her and insisted on mating with a snow). The male is older and more experienced now so maybe this year will produce some nice hatchlings.

This is a pic of the remaining original zigzag female.

Pic of the remaining original male. Sorry, no pics of the other two are available in a postable form.