Just got this adult and I’m trying to identify their Morph

Hi everyone,

I adopted this older corn snake a few days ago with no background about their genetics. I would love if anyone could identify their morph, if possible. Thank you so much in advance!

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The morph is… cutie patootie!

Jokes aside, it looks to me like a lovely wild type/normal adult corn snake, but I’m still learning a lot about their morphs so don’t quote me on that, I could very much be wrong. Do you have any images that show the snake in full body?

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Looks like a pretty Normal with het Masque having its effect on head stamp and belly. :slight_smile:

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That was my first thought, too. Normal with 1 copy of masque.

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@deanaii @snakesofshadowlake what is your give away on masque? Compared to a normal without a copy of the gene?

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The biggest giveaway is the split belly checkers. And the head pattern doesn’t join in the front. But that’s harder to explain. :slight_smile:

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Yes to both counts. It’s harder to see on adults, but the head pattern on a full masque looks like the ghost face from the movie Scream. A single copy of masque makes it look somewhere between a normal head pattern and the scream face.

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Sarah’s Snake Shop has a pretty good video about it:

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The only thing that makes me think it’s NOT het masque is that some of the belly checkers connect and I’ve always seen photos of masque where it’s quite consistent in its split. I rewatched the video and had forgotten that some wild caught snakes from FL also have irregular belly checkers. So, since it’s hard for me to see head pattern in an adult with the same clarity as a baby, it’s hard for me to say for sure this one is masque.

That said, his saddle borders appear hypo-like, while there are still some true blacks visible on the belly checkers, which is another vote for yes on het masque.

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Welcome to the wonderful world of corn snake keeping, @miosoti25 ! I’m another vote for classic het Masque based upon the split belly checkers, head pattern (though it’s harder to see on an adult) and overall brighter effect.

I know what you mean, exemplar photos are usually of nice, evenly split belly checkers. I’ve seen plenty in real life who have uneven expression. Some have almost no expression on the head and widely split checkers. Some have partially split checkers, similar to @miosoti25 's snake. Het Masque is pretty variable.

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And that’s where years of real experience vs combing through hundreds of photos online comes in handy. :joy: Thanks for sharing that info, @caryl.

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