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Here is a picture of an adult female Tessera Cornsnake!

Tessera cornsnakes are likely the first dominant/codominat gene in cornsnakes ever discovered. This is a project with my two GREAT friends KJ Lodrigue and Don Soderberg!- Thanks guys for everything!!

Graham
Strange Crago Exotics

Here's a picture of one of the 2007 hatchlings.

Really different!! Is this something that came from a w/c corn originally? Jeff

Hey Jeff,

We came accross a few strange looking “striped” cornsnakes for sale a few years ago....they still contained black outlines of their stripes...it looked to be more of a "striped motley" pattern at the time. I'm an Okeetee nut so my first thought was to breed them to the thickest-bordered abbotts I could find (I keep a small group of uber thick bordered abbotts) to make “Okeetee” stripes and/or “Okeetee” motleys.

Like KJ pointed out/said (He and Don S. are partners in on this have both have put a TON of effort into proving out/introducing these to the hobby)-"Obviously, there are no true striped cornsnakes with dark or black borders (and they are extremely rare in motley corns), but these had very well defined borders. As they matured, the borders remained black, and the snakes developed into fairly good looking “striped” Okeetee corns."

The story continues but that kinda gives you an idea of how we got everything started. Don S. actually realized that it was something special- he thought they'd make GREAT striped okeetees also and bred a male to multiple abbotts females that were het for nothing. When part of each litter contained these "odd striped" pattern snakes he knew that we had cam accross something special. Don or KJ could tell the story much better than I could...

These have to be the best stripped corns I have ever seen. Love them! So nice to see colorful and bold patterns instead of pale light patterned snakes...
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PHLdyPayne

oops. Typo. Should read 2008 hatchling (not 2007). Sorry everyone.

That is a very cool morph. Jumped on my narrow list of morphs I really like a LOT!

I have no idea if you can mixx that with other morphs some day?

But that has a great blend of color, pattern, and SHAZAM that is cool factor.
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Thanks for reading.
Big Tom

www.HerpZillA.com

>>I have no idea if you can mixx that with other morphs some day?

Don't see why not. We are sure gonna try!
KJ
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KJUN Snakehaven
Pituophis.net

I agree with KJ, I do not see why they can't be crossed into, thus producing Tessera morphs. Since it is co-dominate or possibly dominate, I think it may reduce the quantity of target snakes (morph tessara)produced in in each clutch but hey, few in each clutch is better than none right?

dc

I like the looks of them, they look very un-corn-like. Like a leopard rat or a garter of some sort. I can't wait to see them crossed into other morphs as well.

Thats exactly what I thought when I first saw them when they were posted last summer, very garteresque, love em'. The fact that it is a co-dom is very,very exciting as well. I am trying to picture the anery version, or Okeetee cross, or blood cross, the future possibilites are endless. I hope you guys make lots and lots and lots of babies this year, best of luck to you guys with this project.
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Jeff Benfer
1.0 cinnamon pastel Python regius
1.1 pastel Python regius
1.1 mojave Python regius
0.3 normal Python regius
1.3 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.2 double het albino and anerythristicThamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
2.3 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
0.2 het Christmas albino Thamnophis radix
1.1 double het cherry erythristic, albino Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 melanistic Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
2.0 66% het snow Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 triple heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 butter p.h. stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 carmel stripe p.h. amel Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 amelanistic p.h. carmel,stripe Pantherophis guttatus

I thought the same of the garter. san fran, red sided, red spotted etc. I'm not sure why my goofy brain thought of this, but I thought of a perfect zig zag stripe down the back. I know it sounds crazy, but if you time warped to 1971 with a tessera, and told someone it was a corn snake, you would be questioned for licking to many toads.

Great morph, and just a guess, I think it may have one of the largest impacts on the corns in the future.
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Thanks for reading.
Big Tom

www.HerpZillA.com

Thanks guys! We get the "Garter Snake" look comment alot. Which isn't a bad thing!- It's kinda hard to describe the pattern and that fits-lol.

Thanks for all the kind comments. We have all sorts of plans for the tesseras BUT I think the exciting part is that this year...2009...Tesseras will make it out into the hobby. Decicated hobbyist and breeders will then get to build projects around their own visions of color/pattern combinations... It'll be exciting to see what everyone comes up with!

I guess it's stuff like this that keeps the majority of my racks filled with cornsnakes!

Graham
Strange Cargo Exotics