SMR Archive

Each DAY at 11:00 am. ct (GMT – 5) we will post a different SMR snake being offered at a special price.

All snakes will be chosen for their rarity and/or unique beauty.

FREE U.S. SHIPPING for each Snake-of-the-Day.

Details

{simpleproduct:id=394}

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toDAY’s SNAKE of the DAY (Fri. Nov 9, 2012)

#110912

Each DAY at 11:00 am. ct (GMT – 5) we will post a different SMR snake being offered at a special price.

All snakes will be chosen for their rarity and/or unique beauty.

FREE U.S. SHIPPING for each Snake-of-the-Day.

Details

{simpleproduct:id=392}

ToDAY’s SNAKE of the DAY (Tue, Nov 7, 2012)

#110712

Striped Corn

Female

d.o.h. 2009

46″ long on Nov 6, 2012

$175.00 shipped

This 2009 female Striped Corn Snake is a proven breeder, eating frozen/thawed adult mice.  She needs to be cooled prior to breeding in 2013.

The pattern gene mutation, Stripe, has been demonstrated in virtually every commonly kept snake species.  Of course, striping is the predominant wild-type pattern for many snake species (i.e. garter, ribbon snakes, yellow rat snakes).  In so much as pattern and behavior are linked – since cryptosis is the primary survival behavior of most blotched snakes and speed of flight is primary in most striped snakes – it would be highly unlikely for striped mutant corns to thrive in the wild.  Snakes with blotched patterns benefit from coiling up in the forest undergrowth where they are reasonably camouflaged.  Since a striped mutant corn snake would have the primary instinct to remain motion-less, imagine how fast it would be killed and/or eaten if it looked like a coiled rope in an otherwise chaotic ground-scape?

At this time, there are at least two striped-type corn snake mutants that are not allelic to the original Striped mutation (not counting the allelic Striped Motley); Terrazzo and Tessera.  Tessera usually demonstrates heavy tessellation pattern on the sides which is never seen on Terrazzo or Striped mutants.  Both Striped and Motley mutants are alleles of the same chromosome locus, but those are the only others . . . so far.  Hence, Terrazzo mutants (formerly called GRANITE corns) owe their appearance to a mutation on a locus other than that of Striped and Motley, so when you breed a Terrazzo mutant to a Striped mutant, neither of them are demonstrated in the progeny.  Presuming both parents of such unions possess no gene copies of other mutations, all the babies produced from Striped X Terrazzo mutants would be wild-type phenotypes.  Both Striped and Terrazzo mutations are capable of producing nearly pattern-less individuals. 

Some corn snake keepers and breeders are unimpressed with the often bland appearance of Striped corns, but if you endeavor to make striped versions of other mutations, you must start with a Striped mutant.  Like so many corn snake morphs that are compounds of stripes and other colors and/or patterns, the Striped mutation often does more than just change the pattern.  Frequently, the overall contrast and/or coloration is also altered in the compound product.

In summary, the primary feature of this mutation (the striping) is highly variable in color-saturation, width, length, clutter, contiguity, breaking, restarting, vanishing, and even absence. Most Striped mutants have relatively consistent stripe width (see Striped VS Striped Motley comparison image below).  Expect the belly to be devoid of the classic corn snake checkering, but some colors and markings can be seen on some individuals.  These are usually relegated to dark stippling and/or one or multiple shades of the predominant body color of the snake.  It’s not uncommon for some Striped corns to have white bellies from the chin to half way back toward the tail, and fade into a pale version of the predominant body color for the remainder of the belly, including the tail.  Some have tiny black flecking over part of all of the belly, but never checkering.  The most common belly pattern I’ve seen in Striped corn mutants is color-less with traces of black stippling, usually following an elongate direction or stream.

A comparison photograph of a Striped Amel corn and a Striped Amel Motley corn are shown below, so you can see the main distinction between stripes.  In this image, you can see that the pattern schemes are essentially reversed.  The Striped corn on the left has relatively little pattern zones (striping) relative to overall color and pattern, compared to the striped motley on the right that has very little ground color zone.  The Striped Motley on the right essentially has a linear zone of ground coloration between contiguous dorso–lateral striped markings.  The width of ground color zone between the dorso-lateral pattern stripes is the basic way to distinguish between Striped corns and Striped Motley corns.  BTW, Stripe and Motley are alleles of the same Chromosomal locus, but Motley is demonstrated as dominant over Stripe. 

Each DAY at 11:00 am. ct (GMT – 5) we will post a different SMR snake being offered at a special price.

All snakes will be chosen for their rarity and/or unique beauty.

FREE U.S. SHIPPING for each Snake-of-the-Day.

Details

{simpleproduct:id=388}

ToDAY’s SNAKE of the DAY (Sun, Nov 4, 2012)

#110412

RED Banded Reverse Okeetee

Male

d.o.h. 2011

37″ long on October 31, 2012

$300.00 shipped

This 2010 male Reverse Okeetee exhibits what is rarely seen in our hobby; banded pattern. He should make a great addition to any breeding product to produce redder Reverse Okeetees with banded triads.

Details:

Most Commonly Used Name: Reverse Okeetee

Mode of Genetic Inheritance: Recessive + Selective Variation

Reverse Okeetee (aka: Amel Okeetee, Albino Okeetee)

Morph Type: Selective variant of single recessive mutation

Eye Color:  Red pupils

Reverse Okeetees are variants of the basic Amel Mutation, so their only visual distinction from corns is their polygenetic color and pattern scheme.  Genetically speaking, Reverse Okeetees are Amel corns that have been selectively bred to promote their target look (Highly saturated blotch colors, separated from clean and unspeckled ground coloration by prominent white blotch margins). Red or orange markings are not difficult to reproduce through generational line breeding, but the quality and size of the white blotch margins is often difficult to achieve, and sometimes difficult to maintain through subsequent generations.  The degree of color purity in the orange background and red (or orange) markings have been enhanced via polygenetic traits, modified through selective promotion of only the best target phenotypes. Some will exhibit color “clutter” in these zones, but a distinction between Reverse Okeetees and most Amel corns should be a dramatic reduction in color “noise” — rendering richer colors of blotch and ground color zones..

Each DAY at 11:00 am. ct (GMT – 5) we will post a different SMR snake being offered at a special price.

All snakes will be chosen for their rarity and/or unique beauty.

FREE U.S. SHIPPING for each Snake-of-the-Day.

Details

{simpleproduct:id=386}

ToDAY’s SNAKE of the DAY (Sat, Nov 3, 2012)

#110312

Striped Motley Sunglow

Female

d.o.h. 2011
37″ long on October 31, 2012

$225.00 shipped

This 2011 Striped Sunglow Motley is 37″ long and eating frozen/thawed adult mice.  She has not been cooled in preparation for the 2013 breeding season, but there is still time to do that.  She is most likely het for Stripe, so if you breed her to a Striped Sunglow, you should bet both Striped Motley Sunglows and Striped Sunglows.  Some of her siblings were Butter Motleys, and it appears that she could be het for Caramel (ergo: Butter).

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 Motleypattern.  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.

Each DAY at 11:00 am. ct (GMT – 5) we will post a different SMR snake being offered at a special price.

All snakes will be chosen for their rarity and/or unique beauty.

FREE U.S. SHIPPING for each Snake-of-the-Day.

Details

{simpleproduct:id=390}

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ToDAY’s SNAKE of the DAY Fri, Nov 2, 2012)

#110212

Low-White Pied-sided Bloodred

Male

d.o.h. 2010
44″ long on October 31, 2012

$250.00 shipped

This 2010 male Low-White P/S Bloodred shows little white, but is capable of producing lows, mediums, and highs in the realm of the degree of white – when bred to other SMR Line P/S Bloodreds.  He is possibly het for the McDonald Line of P/S Bloodreds.  he’s 44″ long and eating frozen/thawed adult mice.

Go to History for more details about the DIFFUSED / BLOODRED base mutation of this compound morph.

At this time, this author suspects that P/S Bloodreds owe their atypical white lateral and facial markings to polygenetic traits versus simple recessive mutation. It is sometimes difficult to determine the inheritance of a trait or mutation when expression of the atypical feature is highly variable.  In other words, are the Bloodred siblings of P/S Bloodreds not P/S Bloodreds OR are they P/S Bloodred mutants that are at the lowest end of the 0-to-10 scale for white expression?  When proving the mode of inheritance via evaluation of Mendelian Phenotype Proportions in a single brood of snakes, visual expression is crucial.  Hence, if the expression of white in this morph can be so extremely variable, when citing the ratio of visual mutants compared to visual non mutants, the very description of inheritance can be in doubt.  I therefore honestly don’t know if P/S Bloodreds owe their distinctive pied-sided white appearance to a recessive mutation OR polygenic trait modifications.

Aside from the random lateral white feature that is obvious in most members of this morph – compared to standard Bloodreds – is the extreme diffusion – even if they don’t demonstrate any of the randomly distributed white patches on the sides.  On most – even in the absence of lateral white patches – there is an obvious line of demarcation between the dorsal and lateral pattern fields – just above the half-way point on the sides (dorso–laterally).  This stark break line between dorsal and lateral markings also begs questions about the lateral white being a mutation OR variable expression of polygenetics.