ToDAY’s SNAKE of the DAY (Mon. Feb. 18, 2013)
49″ long on Feb. 18, 2013
This 2009 Striped Sunglow Motley is 49″ long and eating frozen/thawed adult mice. She lays over 20 fertile eggs each season. She brumated from October 10th, 2012 to January 31st, 2013 so she will be in the mood in three to five weeks. The Striped mutation in this snake is barely visible in this specimen, but you should get some striped mutants when breeding this female to a Striped mutant.
Many generations were spent in refining the beauty of the Sunglow Motley. Their genetic mutation is officially Amel Motley, but they have been selectively bred toward the goal of deeply saturated red coloration and classically orderly Motley pattern. For years, we were helpless to explain why the colors in this line were so deeply saturated and why they were redder than other genetic lines. In 2009, one of our friends that wondered the same and conducted breeding trials to determine what caused the intense colors. She concludes that SMR Sunglow Motleys possess the added mutation of what is sometimes referred to as Red Mask or Red Factor. It is allegedly inherited in dominant fashion (it is a recently discovered mutation and is still poorly understood). Once I validate her genetic inheritance findings, the price of Sunglow Motleys will increase, since they will undoubtedly become powerful genetic tools in deepening and saturating reds in other corn snake morphs.