SOTD – Page 192 – SMR Archive

Snake of the Day 06-22-13

The Snake-of-the-Day headliner of this web site features photographs that we believe will interest our web site visitors. Each daily photograph will be posted at 11:00 am. central (GMT – 5) and replaced in 24 hours. Feel free to make suggestions regarding what snake photographs you would like to see in this daily feature. The animals pictured here are not for sale, unless otherwise noted, but you can find available surplus snakes for sale on the Surplus Page of this web site. We appreciate your patronage and welcome any suggestions you may have.

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In addition to being pattern mutants, head markings suggest that these two striped-type corns from pairing a Honey Motley to a Butter Motley-Het Sunkissed are actually Sunkissed mutants. The dorsal color zone between the dark dorso-lateral stripes having an obviously darker and continuous tone resembles a pattern mutation demonstrated in other serpent species. It almost gives the appearance of having all the dorsal markings blended together to form one long and contiguous marking down the back — but I’m not saying that is what’s happening. This is rare in corns, and I’m suspicious that it could be the result of a pattern gene mutation for this species. Breeding trials will substantiate or refute my suspicions. No other Sunkissed siblings of these exhibited this pattern, including the Honey Motley siblings.

Snake of the Day 07-09-13

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These 8 DAY-old Creamsicle Okeetees decided to collectively “wear” their temporary water bowl after tipping it over.

Snake of the Day 06-24-13

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This Charcoal Palmetto shows promise for what we expected; freckles that are all shades of gray and black. It could be that unlike typical Palmettos that only show perhaps 1/3 of their colors as hatchlings — and show more of them as they mature — maybe the Charcoal Palmettos show all of its markings from DAY-one? Since this is the first of its kind, we’ll just have to find out as she matures. It definitely is obvious that she is showing many more color flecks than typical Palmettos of this age.

Snake of the Day 07-10-13

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I suspect most of you out there are growing tired of seeing hatchling corns, but it’s the newest and potentially most interesting camera fodder this time of year. Taking all the photo ops I can while they’re fresh. This group I showed you a few DAYs ago before they had shed. They are from a Tessera x Tessera pairing and both were obviously het for Striped Anery. Looks like the pale Anery in the center of this pile (left image) is a Striped Ghost Tessera. Again pic’d in the right image). It’s possible that some of these could be Tessera Homozygote (aka: Super Form) mutants?

Snake of the Day 06-25-13

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Can you determine which of these three siblings is not a Buf mutant corn snake? Parents are Extreme Okeetee x Buf. The question is rhetorical since it’s easy to tell (in THIS image), but I posted this picture to demonstrate the relatively subtle distinction between common corns and Bufs. In this picture, you see obviously more yellow in the Bufs, but others I have only show a slight color distinction from Common or Okeetee corns. This is why some people offer snakes they say “might be Bufs“.

Snake of the Day 07-11-13

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Both images show the same Scaleless Hypo Sunkissed corn snake that has just begun the physical separation phase of shedding its old epidermis. Relative to the epidermis of a typical snake, it’s obvious that Scaleless mutant corns have a much thinner and more delicate outer skin. As MARGARET NALL pointed out on the Scaleless feature of SMR’s FaceBook page toDAY (thank you, Margaret), their sloughed skin is identical in appearance and texture to that of most geckos. Of course, the obvious distinction between the two species is the mostly smooth and feature-less skin of the snake, compared to the bumpy skin topography of many gecko species. Usually, when starting the skin separation process by rubbing their mouth against something stationary, partial or complete failure results, leaving other weaker parts of the skin to tear first. Therefore, I like to put a hide of damp sphagnum moss in the cage when I see that they are about to shed. You can also see that the color of the new skin generation beneath the separating dead epidermis barely differs in color intensity compared to the more obvious distinction between old and new epidermal generations in fully-scaled corns. Amazing how the SCALE facet of the integumentary system (outer skin) in fully-scaled corn snakes appears to partially conceal the color intensity residing in lower dermal levels.

Snake of the Day 06-29-13

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Part of a brood of the progeny from the pairing of two Common corn snakes — both Het for Blizzard (Amel & Charcoal), Anery, Sunrise, and Palmetto. The Charcoal Palmetto on the right with lots of freckling is the one featured on SOTD a few DAYs ago, but you will notice that there is a second Charcoal Palmetto in the center of the image. This one demonstrates an arrangement of “freckles” that is rarely seen in Palmettos (perhaps one out of 15). I cannot imagine that the destinations of melanophores and chromatophores have such a simplistic destination mechanism, but it APPEARS as though many of the scale colors that were meant to to be randomly distributed throughout the body (but never on the ventrum) are clustered together in two different locations (with a third grouping near the tail – not visible in this pic) see red arrows. When we see this phenomenon in the fully-colored Palmettos, it is rendered in what Martin and TJ Baker call “splashes” of color; mostly red and orange. I like that term, and plan to use it when describing Palmettos with such clusters of color.

Also seen in this image are Common, Charcoal, Blizzard, Amel, Anery, Snow (maybe Snow Blizzard), and Sunrise Amel non-Palmetto siblings. The “black & white” non-Palmetto in the upper-left quadrant of this image could be an Anery, since the grandparent Blizzard of this brood is het for that color mutation. I will surely have to rely on the appearance of the eyes in Charcoals to distinguish between Anery and Charcoal Palmettos and non-Palmetto Charcoals and Aneries. In certain light theaters, many Charcoal phenotypes almost appear not to have a pupil, since there is so little contrast between iris and pupil. This “Anery” mutant has the typical body color contrast of an Anery, but the eyes of a typical Charcoal, so it may be an Anery Charcoal. We have produced many like this that indeed did turn out to be homotygotes of both color mutations.

Snake of the Day 07-12-13

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This is one of the ?Striped Sunkissed? corns we showed you when it was right out of the egg. After its first shed, it’s easier to see the two different color zones that are separated by the dorso-lateral stripes. In a couple of years may find out if it’s a new corn snake mutant.

Snake of the Day 06-26-13

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This is part of the brood resulting from the pairing of an Amel Tessera to a Buf. At least two Amel Bufs and one Buf Tessera are shown above.

Snake of the Day 06-28-13

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Two Saffron Motleys (aka: Sunkissed Butter Motleys) and one Butter Motley, Het Sunkissed. Note the head pattern distinctions.

Not all Saffron Motleys have such atypical corn snake head markings, but most do. Naturally, the Saffron mutants will mature to

be bright yellow as adults. These three (and their other siblings) are progeny from pairing a Saffron Motley to a Butter Motley,

Het Sunkissed (therefore, Het Saffron).