Hypoanerythristic and high black concinnus

[ConcinusMan]

I would be interested in hearing your theories and speculation about the genes involved. How the heck that entire population of concinnus limited to a very tiny geographic area, end up being hypoanerythristic.


I didn't see a single normal snake among them. Doesn't sound recessive, so why such a limited area I wonder? I mean, you cannot deny something interesting is going on when all the snakes in that very limited area look like that, some even more faded and yet....

, normal snakes dominate the entire region and aren't far away from this population. There were a few that had a bit more normal coloration but still significantly different from snakes all over the same county/city looking like the one below but with varying area of spots and sometimes more orange on the head.



Something entirely different is going on in Benton county, OR. Another situation where that is the only very limited area throughout Oregon where these high-red (orange) concinnus with entirely orange heads can be found in the wild. I like them as much, if not more than some of the CB deep reds or others only found in captivity. Benton Co snake:

[ConcinusMan]

Now, to be able to display these 3 together at a show, AND truthfully say that no selective CB was involved, AND these 3 populations are found within a 100 mile stretch the 1-5 corridor surrounded by more "typical" snakes that just...

Extremely interesting.

[BUSHSNAKE]

i like that Benton Co, sharp animal

[ConcinusMan]

Yeah, and they are all high reds (not to be confused with deep red, which I've only seen in CB) in that area. A very small county east of Salem, OR. Outside that range, they less distinct and more typical. Extreme NW oregon and SW WA wild snakes ALWAYS have the black head and blue/green/white lips like the second picture. You just don't see orange heads/upper labials anywhere but the Salem area. I highly suspect that's where much of the CB stock with that same feature, came from originally. That includes Shannons snake.

[Jeff B]

Wow, I like that Benton Co. animal too, crisp and vivid. That anery is cool looking too.

[ConcinusMan]

I didn't get any theories so I guess I'll start making suggestions. Since some or most of the snakes do produce red pigments in varying levels of reduction could this be a co-dominant mutation? is there such a thing?. Lets say an abnormal gene causes the inability to produce red pigment.

If that gene was co-dominant, wouldn't a breeding to a WT produce all hets that still appear anerythristic?

If the offspring breed to one another or another,(het to het) wouldn't the offspring have only a 25% chance of being WT, 50% hets that don't look normal, and 25% are anery?

I don't even want to throw in the complication that there might be more than one gene involved for producing red in concinnus. That's a possibility since some WT are more red, others are more orange. If there's two genes involved homo snakes for one of the genes could have only reduced red, but not completely lacking it. The male I have with more orange than the others, but still not normal, also happens to have a yellow stripe, not greenish/white. Could red and yellow pigment (separate) genes be involved?

This stuff is so confusing. I would really like to hear a few theories/ideas from you genetics experts out there. How could a population of concinnus come have all the snakes lacking red or having reduced red in varying degrees? I would really appreciate it if you could explain the most statistically probable way this population got to be this way. I cannot say I saw a totally anerythristic snake but I can say all lacked normal coloring, some more reduced than others. As you can see, the female on the right is obviously not normal color but the male on the left has closer to normal but still reduced. He was the only one I saw that day that had closer to normal pigment. His black is not exactly black either.

[Odie]

Both in Hillsboro

[ConcinusMan]

Not far from where I got my snakes so it's not surprising that they share some similarities. Typical for that area is the mixed color (black and orange mottling) on the tops of their heads more often than not, instead of solid black. And just like Portland/Vancouver area snakes, they have the blue/green throat. The lighter colored orange isn't quite enough for me to say that your snake is significantly different than a typical NW OR/SW WA snake. Not enough for me to call any of those snakes totally out of the norm. If most of them I saw in the location were like the male in the picture I provided, or just a few of them were, it wouldn't have raised a brow since the orange is obviously present, albeit very light, like yours. But when the majority of the snakes (and I saw 20-25) that you can find and inspect don't have any color that you can call red or orange and all the colors look washed out or bleached to almost nothing, now that's notable. The female I have really appears to have more color in her spots than real life. In person, her spots more closely match her greenish/white stripe. Typical concinnus, whether greenish or yellow stripes have spots that do not even come close to matching their stripe.

All these CB concinnus pics I've been seeing since I joined with deep red, I was telling everyone that is not typical for a WC snake in WA or most of Oregon. But for someone who hasn't found many concinnus over a wide range of both states expects them to be a typical example of the ssp, and expect red. I was telling them, I don't know why they are called RED spotted when ORANGE is a better description for the majority of the concinnus across their entire range. Entirely bright colored heads doesn't represent the majority either. Most tops of the heads are mixed black and orange or all black.

But then you go to an area like Benton Co. and all-orange heads and high orange (total area with this color) richly saturated, dominate and they lack the blue throats. Again, that population is distinctly different than the rest of the ssp range.

Then I find the population I found. Washed-out, faded, appearing to mostly lack anything you can call even very light orange, let lone red, dominates. Overall appearance is that something bleached the orange out of them. Just washed-out looking. Snakes like your pictures, with orange, and like the male in my pic, are few and far between. 1 in 20 that I saw.

CB deep red concinnus probably exist in the wild somewhere as does my hypoanerythristic ones but DO NOT represent the majority of the ssp:







Perhaps I'm making more out of this than it really is. Perhaps there is no special gene carried by my snakes. It's obvious that natural or unnatural selective breeding and "pocket genetics" influences the color of these snakes from a deep red to almost no orange at all. The majority of the snakes in their range just lie somewhere in between. Maybe the opposites are limited in range/genepool and are just extreme examples of the ssp overall. Perhaps all of them really are red but certain wavelengths of light are absorbed by their skin so they just appear very red or very NOT red.

[Jeff B]

I gave my theory about your finding the low red or anerythristic in one area, but unfortunately it ended up on my post with my babies.
But I will copy it here.
This is likely an example of isolated or "pocket" population genetics. The genes (rather than a single gene mutation) for less color have been selected or have dominated that population for what ever reason, could be the brighter colored ones were more easily seen and preyed upon, or could just be that a few mutations for less color that are dominant or co-dominant to the brighter reds occured over time and accumulated and became the overwhelming prevelant phenotype in the population in that area due to a lack of outside population genes in that particular area.
However its certainly possible that it is a single point mutation, likely co-dom or dom that has spread, accumulated, and become the most prevelant phenotype in that isolated population to the point that it is essentially the "wild type". There is only one way to find out, breeding trials outcrossing to other snakes with the more normal red from some other location, at least 2 or 3 generations would be required likely to prove or disprove that it is a single heritable gene and what type of inhertance pattern it exhibits.
__________________
Jeff Benfer

[ConcinusMan]

I think that is the most logical explanation. I still don't know where these babies WC ancestors come from, (can't find the pic right at the moment) that I just saw but I've never seen a concinnus with so deep red and colored heads, AND yellow throats? It's white or bluish in the wild. Deep orange or light orange. 3 stripes or 1. Lot's of red spots or few. That's it.

I think somebody has been cheating and crossing with fitchii for the deeper red and that's where the yellow throat came from. Sometimes I wonder about CB snakes represented as concinnus. Perhaps they aren't pure.