SMR Archive

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.

Breeding reptiles can sometimes break our hearts.  This Pied-sided Bloodred corn (two angles of the same snake) is the result of a second laying of eggs in the same season.  The intermittent gold areas are pieces of the incubation medium, vermiculite.  Most healthy (and adequately-fed) corn snakes will lay two (and sometimes three) clutches of eggs per season, even if they were not re-bred after the first clutch.  The result is almost always a notably low fertility rate, presumably because the sperm stored from the first breeding is low in population and vitality.  Not only are fewer fertile eggs laid in most successive egg clutches of the same season, but developmental problems occur throughout embryology, causing some of the heretofore viable embryos not to survive full-term incubation.  Finally, the few viable embryos that survive complete incubation are often incapable of emerging from their eggs, and subsequently die within them or emerge as this one did; deformed and surely destined to die very young.  

Complications throughout embryology not only cause health issues, but also physiological malformations.  In this image you can see deformities of the head and neck regions, but the spine is also deformed in many places.  If this many deformities are obvious, there’s a good chance that there are also visceral deformations.  In addition to such deformities, color and pattern are often affected, sometimes yielding snakes that look nothing like their nominate species form, and can also be atypical for their respective gene mutation–as probably is the case here.  Almost certainly, at least the exaggeration of target aspects of this Pied-sided Bloodred mutant are probably due to the embryological troubles of this snake.  Future breedings of the first-time parents of this snake will hopefully yield more beautiful Pied-sided Bloodreds, but surely without the negative aspects exhibited here. 

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.

 A

A 2013 male Striped Motley Ghost Tessera.  

Whew, where do I begin?  The subject of these comparative photos concerns the distinction between Striped corns and Striped Tessera corns.  I’m going to explain to you why I claim that these are both Striped-type Butter Tesseras, but I have no empirical proof that they actually are.  

First, both of these 2013 hatchlings will mature to be two shades of yellow (with no brown or orange), and the darker colors you see on one of these has nothing to do with it being a Tessera.  Anyone breeding Butter corns will attest to the fact that brown or orange markings in neonatal Butters turn yellow with age. Upon first glance, we’re tempted to say that the dark one satisfies the visual standard for a Striped Butter Motley, while the other one satisfies that of a Striped Butter.  The darker of these two Butters has the classically wider dorso-lateral striped markings that we typically see on Striped Motleys, and the paler of these snakes has the much narrower dorso-lateral striped markings, common to virtually all Striped corns. Inversely, the yellow ground-color zone between striped markings is the opposite: wider on the Striped mutant and narrower on the Striped Motley mutant.  So, what makes me call both of these Tesseras?  I identify both of these as Tesseras because the stripes on the darker one extend from the neck to the tail tip, and the stripes on the lighter one begin to fade without the intermittent dots or dashes that we see on most Striped corn snake mutants.  The paler of the two satisfies the loose standard for a Vanishing Striped corn, but without the usual dots and dashes after the stripe fades.  Also, having no dorsal “tweener” markings (ovals, circles, bowties, rectangles) between or after the stripes subside indicates that it is a Tessera.  When the stripe of a Tessera breaks, it always starts up again and finally does not end up in dots or dashes; when stripes of non-Tesseras start to break up, what follows the dots and dashes is usually no markings at all.  Even if there are no stripe breaks in non-Tessera Striped corns, the stripe never extends to the tail tip.  

Recently, there has been speculation that–as we see in non-Tessera pattern mutants–the darker of these two Butters is probably a Striped Butter Motley Tessera (aka: Pin-striped Motley Tessera), while the other is a Striped Butter Tessera corn.  You’re saying right now, “well, no kiddin, Don, of course, that’s obvious“, but until now, I’m not sure anyone had performed Tessera breeding trials to prove this picture positively demonstrates the visual distinction between the two.  Since Tessera has so many genetic attributes (direct and collateral) that are new in corn snake mutations, it is not a foregone conclusion that there would be a parallel between Motley and Striped mutants and their Tessera counterparts.  We often see Striped Motleys (that are not Tesseras) having very long and contiguous striping, but to my knowledge, none has ever had stripes contiguously extended to the tail tip.  The very best stripes of virtually all of them break before reaching the tail and do not resume.  Some Tesseras also break at the tail, but even if the stripes of Tesseras break before the tail, they virtually always start up again on the tail – in some striped fashion.  That’s something few (if any) non-Tessera Striped Motleys have ever done.  If the darker of these two is a Striped Motley Tessera, one thing we can see is that the phenotype does not include the lateral tessellation common to regular Tesseras and responsible for their name: Tessera.  

Until we identify reliable markers on Tesseras, easily distinguishing between Striped Tesseras, Striped Motley Tesseras, and their non-Tessera pattern mutant siblings is surely not 100% accurate.  Knock on wood, but so far, every Tessera I’ve produced and sold as a Striped Tessera was either a Striped Tessera or Striped Motley Tessera.  Therefore, so far, the tried and trusted evaluation of stripe quality and contiguity has been a reasonably reliable way to differentiate between those that are Tesseras and those that are not.  Because of the abundance of collateral impacts Tessera has that alter (virtually always improving) the color and pattern in non-Tessera siblings, it makes sense that some extraordinary-looking non-Tesseras are surely out there, and that they are falsely identified as Striped Tesseras?

Thank you, Catherine Turley and Richard Hume for your observations of all three phenotypes from your Tessera projects this year.  Thanks, Catherine, for the following synopsis.  It should be noted that this article is based on current understanding of Tessera data.  It is intended to offer observations of the Tessera types we’ve collectively produced to date.  Of course, there are exceptions to everything, so we are by no means offering this as definitive descriptions of these phenotypes.  Any Tessera evidence to support or refute our findings will be appreciated. 

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.

Two Butter Tessera Corn Snakes.  The darker orange markings will slowly change to bright yellow with maturity; often beginning at around one year of age. 

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.

These siblings are progeny of two corns het for Kastanie and Sunkissed.  The upper corn is the target product, Sunkissed Kastanie and the other is a brightly-colored Sunkissed corn. I don’t yet know how these will look as adults because unless I’m mistaken, all the Sunkissed Kastanies in the world are hatchlings this year?  If mistaken, surely Frank or someone else in Europe has adults of these by now.  If they send me a picture of one, I’ll feature it on SOTD to show an adult example of this beautiful morph compound. 

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.

Several years ago, I bred a Pewter corn to a Rosy Rat Snake (aka: Key Corn) who later demonstrated that she has one copy of the Terrazzo gene mutation (ergo: unbeknownst to me at the time, she was Het Terrazzo).  The F¹s of that pairing gave rise to the first Charcoal Terrazzos, but in an F² generational production, one corn that was Bloodred-looking (with no obvious color phenotype) had trace amounts of random lateral depigmentation, rendering a ?pseudo?-Pied-sided look.  I raised that corn and bred him to an F¹ this year and at least one of their progeny is puzzling.  As you can see from the corn pictured above (pale head color), it doesn’t display any Charcoal colors that it would have inherited from that gene mutation, but is has the eyes of most Charcoals (eye comparison between sibs in right-hand picture).  It doesn’t demonstrate any other markers for being a paradox (other than perhaps showing eyes exactly like Charcoal mutants?), but maybe via something like gene leakage, its eyes are the result of part of the Charcoal gene mutation — but without expression of the body colors of a Charcoal mutant?  Anyone with ideas are encouraged to share them.  Naturally, there isn’t much evidence here to present, but that’s the geneology of this brood and of its ancestors – in the few generations I’ve been working with them.  BTW, most of my Key Corn stock (including these) are from Boyd Line Key Big Pine wild stock (until I infused the Pewter mutation into the family tree).  Hence, the only hobby genes in these snakes would have come from my Pewter, which never produced any mutants other than Charcoal and “Bloodred/Diffused”.  OR is another gene mutation demonstrated in this oddball?

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.

Of course, these four corn snakes are recognizable as Amel mutants by virtue of their red eyes, but isn’t it amazing

how vastly different they can be from the effects of selective-breeding?    The more-orange ones are

Extreme Reverse Okeetees and the red and white ones are High-white Reverse Okeetees.  

Ps, I love the white dots on the head of the top snake.

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.

Another busily marked 2013 Tessera (two camera angles of the same snake) from the pairing of a Tessera (Het Amel) to a Candy Cane, but this one is a male.  Of course, he is also Het for the Amel mutation.  The stomach bulge corresponds to a plump pinky mouse he ate an hour before these images were made. Barely visible in these images is an amazing polka dot pattern on the tail.