A good friend of mine who is a small scale breeder of corns snakes (all common morphs like Amel, Anery, ect) got this surprise last night and we are both excited and scratching our heads. Babies were supposed to be classics with Hets or showing something along the lines of Hypo and possible Charcoal, Anery, and Amel.
It’s a mixed bag to say the least but what could make a baby like this. So are we looking at an anomaly? A one in a million? Some sort of rarity that could be passed on? Any explanations?
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Here is a couple other babies in the same clutch just to give reference and showing off another interesting baby with leopardy spots (pattern break) down part of its body but not the entire body…
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No idea, I don’t really know anything about corn snakes, but WOW! Let’s hope its genetic because that thing is a killer and if it is you should name the morph Chimera!
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The first one is likely a paradox (either chimera or mosaic), and the second one has pattern breakup that I have seen on corn babies before. It is unlikely any of it is genetic because of this. I will let @t_h_wyman say what he thinks is going on though to be certain.
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I do not think this is a paradox animal. You are probably looking at an incubation induced effect or some low-expression stripe gene. Corns have been around for so long and bred around so much that whatever you pick up is very often going to have other genes mixed in that are just “bonus” hitchhikers
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@t_h_wyman What exactly do you mean by “incubation induced” effect?
Unexpected spikes or drops in temp or humidity can result in non-genetic phenotypic effects
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