Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been wondering. How do you get stripes and motleys when breeding corn snakes? I have tried a yahoo search and have come up with nothing.

Would appreciate any info on this.

Thanks.

If you want all motleys, breed two motleys together. If you want all stripes, breed two stripes together. If you want a mix, you can either breed two het motley/het stripes together, or a stripe to a het motley/het stripe.

Well, first of all, They don't just happen from normal cornsnakes. You have to first understand that both the "motley" and "striped" cornsnakes are products of a simple recessive genetic pattern mutation.

The "motley" gene fuses the corners of the normal squarish saddle blotching together, and in doing so, it visually makes the lighter background color of the snake become the small circular pattern you see on the back.

The "striped" gene at some point in the embryo's development prevents the genetic "codes" for blotches from fusing as the normally would from left to right, and from front to back to create one single blotch(saddle). The seperated left and right sides of the blotch do NOT fuse ACROSS to the center of the back(dorsum), but are broken up and do fuse together longitudinally creating the solid striping.

Also, both these genes tend to mute virtually all of the normal belly checkering too.

You really need to start at the beginning with learning some basic cornsnake genetics, and mutations. Yoou can find alot of this on the net by typing some relating terms like...."cornsnake mutations", "cornsnake genetics", "recessive genes in snakes", "snake genetics", etc...

some good, very inexpensive books would be invaluable, and you can refer to them whenever you want. Books like "Corn Snakes, the Comprehensive Owner's Guide" by ~Kathy Love, and the book "Cornsnakes in Captivity" by ~Don Soderberg would be all you need to fully understand snake genetics.

Here is a link that shows a few basic things regarding them, as well as the motley and striped cornsnakes.

Link

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