Ghost morph and other random questions

I've been having a confusing time the last couple of years determining exactly what these corns I have are, and what they are producing.
I have a series of pictures of them and this year's offspring but I'm trying to decide how to present them without making it completely confusing. I think I'll end up doing two threads since I'm having trouble with two pairings.

First, normally how evident is the ghost morph at hatching? I have a ghost female and a presumed ghost male that produce anerythristic looking hatchlings. I have received pictures of one of last year's offspring, and he lightened up tremendously, looking completely ghost to me, even better looking than his mother. I can email the pic to those interested, but I hesitate to post it right now, since it is not mine.

Here are some pics of the snakes in question, the hatchlings are 1 day old:
Female
Female closeup
Male
Male close up
2003 clutch
2003 clutch (photo 2)
The pics are large, btu I didn't want to lose the detail by resizing them. I thought it better to use links rather than put them in the post.
This female received as a ghost, and I believe that is what she is. There are a few adults on Rich Z's site that look practically identical.
The male was purchased as a ghost, but I'd like some opinions on that.
Is it common for ghost clutches to hatch that dark? Having seen last years hatchling at a year old, I know what they will become, but I also had a couple of people question the color of them last year.

Clay,

Well, I hesitate to say anything about how someone's animals look from a picture when its pertaining to their morph status. Computer screens do crazy things to colors, and it's just too easy for me to see something that isn't really there in person. However, since you're asking for opinions . . .

I have to say that none of those animals (parents or babies) look like typical ghosts to me. The adults look like very average colored anerythristics. The balck on them is just too dark for them to be genetically hypomelanistic, in my opinion. The babies are really dark too, and though there may be a lighter one here or there, I still think that they too are aneries. At least, that's what I am seeing from the pics on MY computer screen.

Now, is it possible that your adults are ghosts? Sure. There are some dark ghosts out there, but there are also a lot of lighter aneries too. The ONLY way to know for certain is to do some breeding trials, using PROVEN ghosts. Of course, then you get into the whole "which FORM of hypolmelanism is in my snakes" question. THAT will make you slam your head against a brick wall repeatedly just because it feels better than thinking about THAT issue!

So, I think they're all aneries, but I could certainly be mistaken. Breeding them will be the only way to know for certain, though.

Good luck with them!

I do appreciate your input Darin. The reason I tended to believe the female was actually a ghost was from another I saw on Rich's site.
On this page the fourth picture from the left for instance.

The male I have wondered about since he came in .
As much as I'd like to settle this once and for all, I really don't have the interest in acquiring enough additional corns to do the breeding. I do like the corns, but I don't want that many of them at once.

Check your PM for an additional link.

Clay,

I have copied that picture from Rich's site and posted it here to show you what I am talking about in regard to the borders around the saddles.




If you will notice, although the saddles of this ghost corn are darker than many others, the outlines are still not that deep, dark black that you will see in anerythristics. Like I wrote in my response to your PM, when it looks like someone has outlined the saddles with a black Sharpie, that shouts anery to me.

Of course, those are just generalities, to be sure. One of these days I am going to write a twenty volume set on the color variation among anerythristic corns. Ghosts will be addressed in the follow up twenty volumes . . .right after the forty volume set on hypomelanism . . .right after we figure it all out from genome mapping in corn snakes! LOL

They're good looking animals, regardless, but I would have trouble listing them for sale as anything other than aneries, given the information I've seen thus far. Hope that helps some.

Clay - offhand I would say that you have Anerythristics. Although you do see a lot of variation in both Anerys and in Ghosts, the offspring look like ALL anerys to me. If I get a chance this evening, I will snap a photo of some newly hatched Ghosts for you to compare with.

This sort of thing happens quite often, I would assume. What I generally try to do is to pick the least common denominator. If I am not certain of something is a Ghost, I will call it an 'Anerythristic".

That would be great Rich. Seeing a clutch of newly hatched definate ghosts would clear it up nicely.

Woudl you agree with Darin's assesment that the female in the picture linked to in my original post is an anery as well?
It really doesn't matter to me what they are, it has just bugged me for two seasons not knowing.

I have a clutch somewhere of anerythristics and ghosts together. If I can find them, I'll snap a photo of them as well.

Interesting questions. I have a male ghost corn I got from that I got from breeding a pair of ghosts I got from Brian Barczyk many years ago. I have breed him to a female that I thougt was het for ghost several times and always gotten babies that I thought were anerythistic, they always hatched out dark black and white/grey, so I never kept any. Last year I did keep one and to my surprise it lightened up considerable, developed some pinkish tinging and no longer looks aner. to me. I don't know anyone who got any of the other babies he's produced and I didn't breed him to that female this year so I won't know more until next year. But I was more than a little surprised to see how much color the little one developed over the course of the last year.