16 Thing You Need to Know About Snake Morphs
Corn snakes are harmless snakes that live in the southeastern part of the United States. They are about a foot long and have patterns of bright colors.
Corn snakes are mostly quiet and easy to take care of. People like to keep them as pets. But corn snake owners should be careful, because these beautiful snakes are good at getting out of their cages.
There are a few ideas about where the name “corn snake” came from. The Smithsonian National Zoological Park says that the markings on the corn snake’s belly look like the pattern on Indian corn kernels.
According to the Animal Diversity Web (ADW), a database kept by the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology, the corn snake gets its name from the fact that it is often found in corn and other crop fields.
On the other hand, Davidson College’s Herps of North Carolina says the name comes from the fact that corn snakes often live in barns where rats come to eat corn and other grains.
Corn snakes are related to rat snakes, which is why they are sometimes called “red rat snakes.” Their name comes from the fact that they are usually reddish-orange or orange-brown in color.
The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries says that snakes at higher elevations are darker in colour.
Jeff Beane, the collections manager for amphibians and reptiles at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, says that corn snakes have “dark-margined red or brown mid-dorsal blotches and smaller lateral blotches on a red, orange, brown, or grey ground.”
Their bellies are shiny white and have big black spots on them. They sometimes have orange spots on their bellies and two black stripes under their tails.
Beane says that they have a “spear-shaped blotch” on their heads that makes them stand out. “Dark vertical bars” are also on their lips, and their eyes are usually orange or red. Their eyes’ pupils are round.
What Is A Snake Morph?
When a snake has “morphed,” a change in its genes has caused it to look different from what most people would expect.
A morph is different from a genetic defect because it usually affects colour instead of the way an animal looks (ex., two heads).
We are tired of seeing the same Pythons, Cornsnakes, and other common snake breeds all the time, so we are breeding snakes to be different.
Snake-morph breeding has a long and interesting history. Snake morphs aren’t just a happy accident; they’ve become a sport that rewards beauty and individuality.
Genetic Defects vs. Morphs
After a failed science experiment turned turtles into human-like creatures who could fight crime, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were born.
I’m sorry to let everyone down, but this isn’t what we were talking about. There are no snakes the size of people that eat pizza and wear colourful bandanas.
People can sometimes mix up a morph with a genetic flaw.
As an example, a genetic defect could cause a snake to have two heads! This is strange, though. Most of the time, when people talk about “morphs,” they mean colour morphing.
For example, a collector or breeder would pay more for an albino ball python than for a wild-type ball python.
For us, the only difference between a genetic defect and a morph is that the former is strange and strangely interesting, while the latter is beautiful and interesting.
The Genetic Reasons For Morphism
Please bear with me while I talk about this. I’m not a scientist who has won awards in genetics, and I don’t think you are either. Even though I don’t know enough about this subject to give a lecture on it, I have done a lot of research on it. I thought I’d take a few minutes to explain why snake morphs happen when genes change.
From what I’ve read on the internet, there are many reasons why colours change. The main reason we’re going back to biology class from high school is
Passed-down mutations occur because both parents carry the recessive gene for that mutation.
Sometimes it shows up in the child’s body, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Right now, that’s as far as I want to go with genetics.
Many people like the morphs that happen on their own. Around the middle of the 1900s, it became more common to breed snakes in a certain way to make them change shape.
Since then, we’ve kept up the tradition of pushing the limits of what we know. We look for interesting and beautiful things in everything we see. Snakes are not the only animals that can surprise us.
Why Morphs?
Because they were hard to find in the wild, morphs became very popular.
Having a snake was no longer seen as strange.
Something brightly coloured, with an interesting pattern, or a combination of the two was needed to keep the excitement going.
After a while, morphs were no longer so rare that only a few breeders had them. Now, the goal is to be unique or to have a lot of different products so that you can sell to a wide range of buyers.
The snake market is full of different kinds of snakes, and it’s rare that you can’t find one if you look for it.
Natural vs. Engineered
Snake breeders often take two different snakes with different characteristics and breed them together to make a new and interesting snake that will sell for a high price.
Surprisingly, I’ve found a lot of websites with a “morph calculator” on them. You put in two snakes of the same kind that you want to breed, and the calculator is supposed to tell you what is most likely to happen and how likely it is to happen.
This is an interesting idea because I had never thought of genetics as a simple math problem that a computer could solve. Oh, the things that technology can do!
In the wild, morphs are rare because it is unlikely that two snakes will have the same recessive mutation.
In the world we live in now, the word “rare” is almost always used to mean “money.”
This is where the constant fight for power starts.
It has become so popular to breed snakes for their unique morphed traits that some morphs are no longer that rare.
Wobble Syndrome
Snake coloration morphs that are born healthy don’t seem to need any extra care.
In general, being a morph is not the same as being disabled and needing special care or instructions.
Most of the time, the morphs eat, live, and take care of themselves the same way that wild snakes of the same breed do.
A wild-type Ball Python or an Albino Ball Python will need the same care.
Even though everything I’ve said so far is true, selective breeding can cause some problems that can affect your snake’s mind or body.
The wobble is a common problem with ball pythons that have changed into spiders.
This morph has been linked to “Wobble Syndrome,” a condition that affects the nerves and can be mildly dangerous.
Wobble Syndrome is a condition in which the muscles of the snake are weak, making it hard for the tail to grip things tightly.
Someone told me about this flaw because it might change how you feed your snake. If you choose to feed your snake live prey, the wobble syndrome may make it hard for your morph to catch its prey.
This wouldn’t be a problem, though, because these problems are usually obvious when the snake is born and don’t show up out of the blue later in its life.
Here is a scholarly article I found that talks about all the problems that can arise when snake morphs are bred.
During my research, I found that these flaws don’t necessarily mean that your Ball Python or other selectively bred snake will live less.
All these flaws do is change how your snake morph lives. Check out that article if you want to learn about the science behind the flaws.
All of these articles have shown me how important it is to know what you are doing.
Snake breeders spend a lot of time and money over many years to figure out which snake breeds mix well and which don’t.
It involves both art and science. And if science class disasters have taught me anything, it’s that it’s important to know what you’re doing.
Where to Find Snake Morphs
There are a lot of snake morphs. Like any snake you want to buy, the morphed ones won’t be far behind. Most breeders sell both wild and mutated animals.
MorphMarket.com and some other breeders specifically sell morphs. The name makes it clear what it wants to sell.
Find out what kind of morph you want before you do anything else.
Some morphs are more common than others, like the albino ball python. This snake can be found in more than one place because it was once very popular among snake people.
There are also snake expos where morphs are common and often celebrated. Snake expos are held all over the country and show snakes from many different breeders.
There’s a good chance you’ll find the one you’re looking for. It’s also nice that websites for snake expos usually tell you what kinds of snakes and reptiles you can expect to see.
Expos are a great place to find a new breed, but if you just want to get your snake quickly and easily, the best way is probably online. Some online breeders have websites with pictures, descriptions of the breeds they sell, and care instructions.
People who don’t live near a breeder can also benefit from shopping for snakes online. The problem with buying your snake online is that you have to pay more for shipping and handling. Before making a choice, you should always do a lot of research.
Snake morphs can be found in the wild, but they are not as common as when they are raised in captivity. (And you can’t take them with you very often.) If the genes are right, morphs can happen on their own.
People are always amazed when they see them in the wild, and this has now spread to the way that snakes are bred to produce these amazing results.
Types of Ball Python Morphs
Some of the most common snake morphs can be seen in ball pythons. While doing research, I’ve found that the Albino Ball Python is one of the most sought-after combinations.
This morph is so magical because most ball pythons have scales that are a mix of dark and light colors. People like browns, blacks, and tans, but sometimes they are thought to be boring.
The Albino Ball Python made the traditional colour wheel more vibrant. This morph has red eyes and white and yellow fur. These are very popular with people who like snakes.
Other types of Ball Python Morphs Include:
– Desert Ghost Lemon Pastel
– Bumble Bee Ball Python
– Champagne Ball Python
– Albino
– Pie Bald
– Pinstrip
– Spider Ball Python
– etc.
Ball Pythons are popular with breeders because they can make so many different kinds of babies. These beautiful and different animals can be used to make real art.
Types of Corn Snake Morphs
This post will mostly talk about Ball Python morphs and how breeding affects them, but it is important to remember that Ball Pythons are not the only market for snake morphs. Another popular breed is the corn snake morph.
Some popular corn snake morphs include:
– Albino Corn Snakes
– Okeetee Corn Snakes
– Snow Corn Snakes
– Black Corn Snakes
– Lavendar Corn Snakes
Because corn snake morphs can look so different and are so pretty, colour plays a big role in the market. As you may have seen, albino snakes are very popular.
This is because their skin doesn’t have enough pigments to give off color. Albino snakes are interesting to buyers because they are white and have red eyes.
Other snake breeds have been crossed to make morphs, but neither the Corn Snake nor the Ball Python are as common as they are.
Corn snake morphs
ADW says that corn snakes are the most common type of snake to breed in the U.S. Commercial breeders of domesticated corn snakes have made hundreds of different types, or “morphs,” through careful breeding (or breeding).
The Ratsnake Foundation Herpetological Society lists the following as morphs:
Because they don’t have any melanin, or black pigment, albino corn snakes are also called melanistic corn snakes. These snakes are red, orange, yellow, and white, which are all bright colours. Eyes can also be red, orange, or pink.
Okeetee corn snake: This breed came from corn snakes in South Carolina. Their saddles are dark red in the middle and have black edges.
The black corn snake is a type of corn snake that doesn’t shed its skin. Anerythrism is the lack of the pigment erythrin, which is what makes reds and yellows. Most of the time, these snakes are grey and black.
In the 1980s, a snow corn snake was bred with a wild-caught female corn snake to make this morph. These snakes’ colours range from dark greyish to bright lavender pastel.
Copperhead look-alike
The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries says that corn snakes are often killed in the wild because people think they are copperheads.
Beane says, “These species don’t look at all alike to anyone who knows snakes.” He tells people to “get to know them” so that they can learn to tell them apart.
The two species can be told apart by their markings.
Copperheads have marks that look like an hourglass, while corn snakes have marks that are blotchy and random. Copperheads also don’t have the black and white spots on their bellies. Beane said, “If you’re not going to touch a snake, you don’t need to know what it is.” “Just leave it alone.”
“Corn snakes are usually calm, but each one is different,” he says. If they feel threatened, their tails may shake.
How big do corn snakes get?
The Florida Museum of Natural History says that corn snakes are thin and can be anywhere from 18 to 44 inches (45 to 112 centimetres) long, with the record being 72 inches (1.8 meters).
Habitat
They do, however, go “from the Pine Barrens of New Jersey south to the Florida Keys and west to the Mississippi River.” He also said that you can find the Great Plains rat snake, which is a subspecies, from the Mississippi River to eastern Utah.
Corn snakes are active day and night, but in hot weather, they are more active at night. Beane says that they live in a “wide range” of places. “They live in forests most of the time, but they can also live in grasslands and other places.”
Beane says that in cold places, corn snakes hide in stump holes, animal burrows, or other underground places.
According to the Smithsonian Zoo, corn snakes sneak into abandoned buildings and rodent burrows to find food. During the warmer months, corn snakes sometimes even climb trees.
They also like places that people have made, like wooded areas, abandoned buildings, and barns. Beane says that corn snakes often look for shelter under things like logs, boards, and sheets of metal.
What do corn snakes eat?
Beane said, “Young ones eat mostly lizards and frogs, especially tree frogs, but adults eat mostly mammals and birds.” Most of the time, corn snakes eat rodents. Since they don’t have poison, these snakes squeeze their prey instead of biting it.
They bite their prey to get a good hold on it, and then quickly coil their strong bodies tightly around it.
Corn snakes kill their victims by squeezing them so hard that they can’t breathe. The Smithsonian Zoo says that corn snakes then swallow their prey whole, head first. They will sometimes eat small prey that is still alive.
Reproduction
Beane says that corn snakes mate in both the spring and the fall. “When two or more males meet in the presence of a willing female, they may engage in ritual combat (body-shoving contests),” he said.
She puts them in rotting stumps, piles of dead plants, and other places that are warm and moist enough for the eggs to hatch. Then she slips away, and the babies never see her again.
About two months pass before the eggs are ready. Herps of North Carolina says that when they are born, babies are 10 to 15 inches (25 to 38 cm) long and look like adults. On a grey or light-orange background, their spots are much darker, ranging from brown to almost black.
The Florida Museum of Natural History says that they can live up to 22 years in captivity, but they don’t live as long in the wild.
Classification/taxonomy
Before, corn snakes were put in a group called Elaphe. But U. Utiger and his colleagues decided in 2002, based on genetic research, that North American rat snakes were different from Old World snakes, which are also called Elaphe.
They wrote in the Russian Journal of Herpetology that corn snakes and rat snakes north of Mexico should both be put in the Pantherophis genus.
The new taxonomy has not been used by the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), which is a g is a group of agencies from the United States and other countries.
However, the Animal Diversity Web and the International Union for Conservation of e (IUCN) haveroup of agencies from the United States and other countries.
However, the Animal Diversity Web and the International Union for Conservation of Nature have (IUCN). “We keep this species in Pantherophis, like Utiger et al. (2002), until we know more about how these taxa are related,” says the IUCN.
These are the types of corn snakes:
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Subkingdom: Bilateria
- Infrakingdom: Deuterostomia
- Phylum: Chordata
- Subphylum: Vertebrata
- Infraphylum: Gnathostomata
- Superclass: Tetrapoda
- Class: Reptilia
- Order: Squamata
- Suborder: Serpentes
- Infraorder: Alethinophidia
- Family: Colubridae
- Genus: Elaphe (or Pantherophis)
- Species: Elaphe guttata (or Pantherophis guttatus)
- Subspecies: Elaphe guttata emoryi, or Pantherophis guttatus emoryi (Great Plains rat snake); Elaphe guttata guttata, or Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (corn snake)
Related Questions
How many kinds of ball pythons are there?
Can a ball python hurt you?
The ball python could hurt the person who owns it. If you are careful and follow the care instructions for your Ball Python, it shouldn’t give you any trouble. Always keep the possibility in mind and move carefully.
What is “wild-type” snake breed?
“Wild-type” snakes look like what a typical snake of that breed would look like if it lived in the wild. “Morph” is the opposite of “wild-type,” and it means a change in a person’s genes.
I have been working in animal shelter for the past six years and I have been raising the puppies of different breeds. I have had experience in training the puppies in obedience, agility, and other dog sports.
My main objective is to train the puppies to become good family pets. They should be well-behaved and trained to be loving, loyal, and obedient.
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