What is Stargazing? And how do you identify it?

Stargazing is a neurological condition that has cropped up in the Sunkissed and Okeetee lines, as well as a few other morph combinations that have been created using the Sunkissed gene, that is apparently caused by a recessive gene. A snake that has stargazing will have trouble with basic motor functions - their head will wobble violently, they will flop their heads upside down as they attempt to move, and seem to have trouble righting themselves if they get turned completely upside down. When excited or aggravated, the symptoms will be more pronounced.

Symptoms of stargazing tend to occur right out of the egg or shortly after. An animal that is het for stargazing, (carrying only a single copy of the defective gene) will show no outward signs of the defect. When paired with another S-factored (a het carrier of the stargazing gene) 25% of the clutch could potentially be stargazers.

T & J's take on Stargazing.

In 2006, we picked up a Sunkissed male from CCCorns with the intention of breeding him to produce more Sunkissed and other Sunkissed based morphs. We first heard of the stargazing condition in cornsnakes, having previously believed that stargazing was more common in boids. It was not until early in 2007 that we learned that Jasper, our Sunkissed male, was a possible carrier of the S-Factor. His mother was proved to be a carrier of the stargazing gene in 2007 after CCCorns conducted several breeding trials to determine which of their animals carried the defective gene.

We soon found ourselves caught between a rock and a hard place concerning the breeding projects that we had our male slated to participate in. Do we breed him as planned knowing we may be passing on the detrimental gene? Or do we push everything back until we have a means of proving out whether or not he is S-Factored? In the end, because we'd already loaned him out to a fellow breeder, we went ahead with our 2007 project knowing that the offspring would have to be tested if Jasper was proved positive at a later time.

All of those offspring produced in 2007 are currently not for sale, pending on future test breedings of our original male. Our partner in the project is fully aware of the situation and knows that we will keep him advised of any and all test results.

How will we go about testing our stock?

While at the NARBC Anaheim show in September of 2007, we were offered a pair of yearling female stargazers from another breeder. We intend to raise both of the females in the hopes that one or both of them will reach breeding size. At such time, we will pair one or both of them with our male Sunkissed to determine if he is carrying the S-Factor.

Any stargazers that result out of the planned breedings will be humanly euthanized and the rest of the animals, which will be known carriers of the detrimental gene, will be offered to other breeders who are serious about testing out their stock. All of the offspring of any such breeding will be registered with the ACR in order to help track the gene.

In the event that we find our male to be positive for the S-Factor we will remove him from all breeding projects in order to reduce the chances of passing on the defective gene. All existing offspring will then be tested for the presence of the gene. Until we have a chance to test out our male, we will not be pairing up Jasper in any future projects.

What have we learned about the Stargazers that we have been raising?

Since we brought these two girls home last year they have at least doubled in size, only refusing meals when they are in the blue. They are as active as any of our other corns, and have developed the typical Sunkissed attitude - ie: They strike at anything that moves, lunge towards fingers with lightning speed, and flail around like a plastic bag in the wind when first picked up. In this sense, they are like any other young corn in our collection that has not been with us for more than a few months.

Constant observation has shown us that the degree each snake is affected by the Stargazing is quite varied. Edith appears almost normal at times, calmly moving about her cage, her reflexes only out of complete control when she is over excited. Frieda on the other hand, seems to have a more difficult time controlling her movements, the jerking and twisting motions much more pronounced. She is also the more aggressive of the two - which may or may not account for the extra exaggerations of her movements.

As always, the two girls seem to be compensating for the lack of motor control and continue to thrive on their steady diet of mice. We will post another update on their condition in a few months.

Here is a recent picture of our Sunkissed male, Jasper:

Here are s handful of pictures of the yearling stargazers:

Pictures of the yearling Stargazers eating a recent meal:

Recent photos of both stargazers, who are at this time thriving (photos taken on 2-28-08):

Related Links:

What is all This Hype About Stargazer Syndrome
Why They are Called Stargazers
Stargazing
Stargazing Discussion Continued
The Stargazer Project - Hanneyscorns
The Stargazer Project
Praying for no S gene
Discussion... Our Sunkissed Genes (Stargazer/Sfactor gene) - Hanneyscorns

If you have access to any other link or outside information, please feel free to contact us so we can add them to our list for future reference.

Questions/comments we have received regarding our stargazing project:

Q: Hi,

in your topic you said if anyone had questions about the stargazing they can PM you so here's my question.
what is stargazing?Because i never heard of it here in holland. Is it something with sunkissed or am i wrong here? - B.J.S.

A: B.J.S.

Stargazing, like spinning or bobblehead in ball pythons, is a neurological problem in corn snakes. It is very closely associated with the sunkissed lines, though it could crop up in other morphs. It was previously thought to be a random occurrence possibly related to incubation, but was recently proved to be a recessive gene by Connie Hurley of CCCorns.

A snake that has stargazing will have trouble with basic motor functions - their head will wobble violently, they will flop their heads upside down as they attempt to move, and seem to have trouble righting themselves if they get turned completely upside down.

Q: I'm not sure how I feel about Stargazers being distributed, but admit that I need to be refreshed on the whole story. When I read Connie's thread about Stargazers and the project she was working on I remember feeling quite passionate for her. Perhaps my views have changed or maybe I just need to read through the whole thing again.
Here's the deleted comment:

I remember Connie making some good points about Stargazing research, but I didn't realize it was going to become so far spread. If we start breeding and trading stargazers won't this just make the problem show up more often? It seems inhumanly cruel to bring out a defective gene on purpose. If the defect was ignored and dispersed at random it seems like the chance of two hets coming into contact with each other and producing a stargazer would be quite rare. What is the average life span of stargazers now? Perhaps I should dig up Connie's old thread to refresh my memory, but creating a line of stargazers seems kind of sadistic to me. Even attempting to prove an animal is not het for stargazing may lead to the production of more stargazers.

That said, they really are quite beautiful. Seems like they have a goofy little day dreaming grin on their faces too. hrmp. I'm just not sure how I feel about this. - Jessica

A: Jessica,

You do bring up a lot of valid points. The thing is, in order to determine if our original male is carrying the stargazing gene, we have to breed him to either a known carrier or an actual star gazer. We are not breeding these animals for the fun of it - nor are we looking to make money off of a defect. We simply wish to know if our snake is indeed a carrier - so that we can take that into consideration when placing him with females for future projects. If we discover that he is, we will no longer use him in our projects. Any stargazers that are produced will be humanly euthanized to prevent the gene from becoming more wide spread.

Those animals that are known het for stargazing will not be sold to the general public. They will only be offered to fellow breeders who are interested in testing their own stock. These animals will be registered with the ACR to help keep track of their offspring so that anyone will be able to look up the info on our animals.

If we don't test for stargazing - then how will we ever know if we are potentially spreading this detrimental gene through negligence? I knew before I posted the pictures that some controversy would inevitably result from the stargazing issue.

I don't really know if these two females will reach adulthood or not, I know Connie did loose a couple of the ones she had produced, but she also has some that are still doing ok. These two are 06's, so they are about a year old or close to it. We are also keeping in touch with the original breeder of our pair, who produced them from Love stock that he had purchased.

I appreciate you PMing me with your concerns and I'll be happy to have any other questions or concerns you have with this issue.

Q: Last I heard, these were the ones folks wanted to put out of their misery. Please tell me the reasons why this trait is so captivating. I guess from a clinical point of view, it's slightly interesting, but what are you testing for? - Shaky

A1: Shaky,

Breeders are trying to detemine which animals actually carry the gene so they can eliminate those lines from their breeding stock and have "clean" bloodlines that won't reproduce this trait. - Dionythicus

A2: Shaky,

As Dionythicus mentioned, we are looking to test our male to determine if he is carrying this trait. There is a 50% chance that he is, because his mother is a known carrier. (Connie proved that out earlier this year I believe.)

We're not looking to propagate the stargazing gene - but rather to determine if our current collection (baring these two new girls) is carrying the detrimental gene. If he turns out to be positive, then our male will be retired from all of our breeding projects and we'll set about testing out the offspring that he produced this year. The rest of our sunkissed projects are on hold until we test him.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns in regards to stargazing or our efforts on testing our stock for stargazing, please e-mail us. Please keep in mind that any and all questions and comment will be posted here for public viewing as will any and all repsonses. (We reserve the right to edit out portions of any question or comment in the event we feel that the original wording is vulgar or otherwise inapropriet or off topic from the original discussion.)

Thank you,