CORN SNAKE

My single recessive

Normal - Classic

 Amelanistic - Albino

Anerythristic

Charcoal

Lavender

Hypomelanistic

Ultramel

Diffused - Bloodred

Peachy

Scaleless

Striped

Motley

Sunkissed

My triple traits

Striped Ghost - Stripe x Hypo x Anery

Striped Butter - Stripe x Amel X Caramel

Snow Motley - Amel x Anery x Motley

Ghost Motley - Motley x Hypo x Anery

Butter Motley - Motley x Amel x Caramel

Pewter Motley - Motley x Diffused x Charcoal

My quad traits

Stripe Butter Motley

Stripe x Amel x Caramel x Motley

Stripe Ghost Tessera

Stripe x Hypo x Anery x Tessera

Genetics

What is a morph? What is a gene?

When dealing with corn snakes, there are many different colour mutations and patterns, we call these “paint jobs”.  Corn snakes come in a variety of colour mutations which include white, orange, green, brown, grey, pink, peach, yellow, purple and many more. The colours are represented by names depending on the combination of the colours.  There are different names for these colours and we will be discussing some of the basics.  First we need to understand some terminology.

Recessive genes

Recessive genes are genes that get carried on in the parents offspring. Lets take the most common recessive gene, the Amelanistic (Albino).  If we breed two albinos together, all the babies will hatch out as albinos. If we breed one albino to one normal, all the babies will hatch out normal looking but they will all carry the albino gene. These babies are therefore called “ het” for albino. “het” is a shortened word for heterozygous. This means that the baby is carrying a portion of the gene in its DNA.

Dominant genes

A dominant gene works very different from a recessive gene.  Dominant genes cannot have “ het” babies.  This means that the babies cannot carry a hidden portion of the gene in their DNA. An example of a dominant gene is the tessera corn snake.  Tessera is the gene. If you breed one tessera with another one tessera, all the babies will hatch out as tessera. If you breed one tessera with a normal, half of the babies will hatch out tessera and the other half will be normal looking, however the normal babies in this instance will not carry the “tessera” gene and therefore are not hets.

There are many morph calculators available on the internet to assist with your breeding plans. The best calculator for corn snakes is on Ians Vivarium.  You can find a link to the calculator on my corn snake care page.

Once you understand the different categories of genes, then we can talk about traits. Traits are basically the amount of individual genes in a snake.  Corn snakes have many trait groups up to date. There are single traits, double traits, triple traits and quad traits and so it goes for each extra morph added to a single animal.

Have a look at my collection descriptions above for differet morphs available in all the trait catagories I keep for example.

CONCLUSION

Do a lot of research about the snake you want to keep.  You might be surprised how interesting researching snakes can be.  Genetics is a vast topic but once you understand the basics it will all fall into place and you will start to understand how the different colour and pattern mutations were created and how to create your own.  There are thousands of options and here at Tyron's Corns and Colubrids we want them all.