Category: SOTD

Snake of the Day 01-15-16a

This 2015 male Amel Tessera (possibly STRIPED AMEL TESSERA)  is now 16″ long, eating frozen/thawed small mouse pinkies.  He could be het for Sunkissed, since one of his siblings was a Sunkissed.

Same snake in a different pose.

Snake of the Day 01-01-16

Female (reduced orange) and Male (more orange saddles) Granite morph Gray-banded Kingsnakes (Lampropeltis alterna).  We still call this a morph because it has not been proven to be a mutation, but if not mutation, obviously a polygenetic morph.  Polygenic is the interactions between certain genes to render a snake atypical, compared to it’s nominate (wild-type) form.  And “yes” he’s chinning like he wants to take her out for a mouse and some quiet music. 

Snake of the Day 01-03-16

Sub-adult Shatter Corn (Sunkissed Cinder).  Its name denotes what happens to otherwise Classic corn snake pattern when a Corn has both mutations, Sunkissed & Cinder.  The pattern breaks up, often not leaving a single recognizable corn snake pattern aspect.  Regarding the irregularly shaped pupil, we don’t yet know what causes the pupil in some corns to have non-circularity.   

Snake of the Day 01-04-16

Produced by Terri Bienkowski, this hatchling Rhyno Ratsnake Rhynchophis boulengeri  began life like all neonates of this spceies (tan or brown), but the brown slowly changes to green through maturity. This species is aptly named for their remarkable rostral appendage. A gene mutation that adds a blue tone renders some of them being somewhat turquoise, but most of the members of this species in captivity mature to be grass green.