Snake of the Day 04-08-16

Show & Tell

A macro shot of Chip Bridges’ amazing Scaleless corn that he hatched in 2014.  We believe you’re now looking at a Scaleless Lavender corn snake (classic namesake lavender coloration not demonstrated because our visual perception of that color is stimulated by iridophores that reside in the outer epidermal layers–which are missing because of the absence of MOST OF that dermal layer in Scaleless serpents). 

Note the irregular scale shapes–and consequent adjacent mismatching of marginal mouth scales–can cause a minor problem in Scaleless corn mutants.  We recommend frequent evaluation of the mouth areas so particulate substrate (like the strand aspen seen at the lip junction here) can be manually removed with forceps/tweezers upon discovery.

Reminder before-and-after pic of this snake from when it hatched to a few short weeks post-partum maturity. Bonus reminder pic