#Ultramel Motley corn snake

[omg-snakes]

Hey, I was wondering if you could identify the morph of my cornsnake? I bought her as an ultramel motley before I knew anything about snakes, but she doesn't match the description of the morph I've seen. Her belly lacks the checkerboard pattern completely, and instead is white that fades to yellow/orange lower on her body.

Hello and what a lovely lady!

Thank you for sharing her. I think she is an Ultramel Motley from what I can see here, and a very pretty one at that!

It sounds like the description you found may have discussed Ultramel but not Motley.

For those who aren't familiar with the morph, Ultramel is a combination of Ultra and Amel, which are allelic. An allele is a specific spot on a DNA molecule where a certain gene sits, and the term allelic means two genes that do different things but occupy the same allele. Ultra is a gene introduced by breeding corn snakes with grey rat snakes, and it results in hypomelanism and some yellow/red pigment enhancement. Amel is a total lack of melanism (duh). Since these two genes sit in the same spot on the DNA molecule in corn snakes, they can mix and match to create an Amel snake, an Ultra snake, or an Ultramel with some features of both morphs: heavily reduced melanism to where it's nearly completely removed, enhanced red/orange pigments.

Motley is a pattern-altering gene, and it causes the blotches on a snake to be concentrated along the spine with reduced or absent patterning along the sides, and absent belly checkers. A high-quality Motley snake will have a solid white tummy with no checkers, usually with some red/orange color bleed towards the back half as they get older. Motley is another allelic gene, but its possible allele cohabitant is the Stripe gene!

Anyways she's gorgeous and looks very healthy and loved. Please give her a gentle pat for me.

[sparradile]

Lovely little Dove

[gopheryourpet]

2020 Ultramel Tessera Corn Snake het Diffused Motley Possible het Caramel Hypo female. Ursula is eating frozen thawed rodents, has a great disposition, and weighs 5 grams. As always these are photos of the actual snake available. Email us at ScalesForSale@GopherYourPet.com or call 682-414-0013. Payment plans, Credit/Debt Cards, Venmo, PayPal, and shipping are available. Kingwood, Texas $100.00. All sales are final. New GopherYourPet website coming soon Shipping to Canada is now available! #reptile #reptilesofinsta #reptilesofinstagram #snakes #snakesofinstagram #ballpython #kingsnake #gecko #herp #available #pets #gophersnake #gyp #gopheryourpet #python (at Kingwood) https://www.instagram.com/p/CHLYlc_Mfva/?igshid=1uj8nsarzp2bj

[omg-snakes]

Apollo II is ready for takeoff.

As much as I have enjoyed watching this doof grow from a gangly little weirdo into a limbless Adonis, I just... I don't have the energy to deal with yet another allelic gene and the dude is Ultramel Ice instead of Hypo Ice as I'd hoped. I've had such rotten luck with the Ice morph already anyway that I'm throwing in the towel and focusing my energy in a more productive direction.

I hope that someone will scoop him up and treasure him, because he really is a lovely guy.

[omg-snakes]

All of the littles from BDJB23 have finished up their recent sheds and the hom-poms are starting to look much more spotty. #1 is a Classic Motley Palmetto and #2 and #3 are both Ultramel Palmettos.

Here's an eye comparison for the leucistic kiddos. Their eyes are a little buggier than usual because they just ate, but F3 is also normally slightly buggy because Palmetto reasons.

[omg-snakes]

The Palmetto and heterozygous kids from BDJB23 all shed and were introduced to food today. I thought the hom-Palms were going to be very hard to tell apart until they started getting their spots, but #1 has dark pupils where #2 and #3 have ruby pupils so that helps. Plus #2 is behaviorally distinct because they're zoomy and high-drama.

Everybody else is alert and wants to interrogate hands, but once I've been subjected to a sniff-search they decide I'm okay to hang out with.

Also the hom-Palms have firmed up after a few days in the air, and they're thankfully much less see through. Apologies to those who were hoping to see some UV-glow snake brains.

[omg-snakes]

The babes from BDJB23 are getting big and getting ready for their second shed. The Hom-Poms are all girls and the hets are both boys. I wasn't planning on holding any of these kids back but #1, a likely Charcoal or Ultramel Charcoal, is going to be hard to let go of.

[omg-snakes]

[omg-snakes]

Anthony came to me a year ago as a non-feeder who was about to be culled. There was nothing physically wrong with him, he just needed a little extra attention. I got him eating right away and now he's strong, smart, and sweet.

Since his genetics don't fit into my breeding plans and I don't need more pets, it's time for Anthony to find his fortune in the world.

He's currently listed on MorphMarket!

[omg-snakes]

Hello! I need some help with corn snake genetics, if you'd be willing to lend your time and knowledge ^^ I recently went to a snake convention and got me a new corn snake baby. It was sold to me as a mystery motley, so I've been trying to find out for a few days now what her genetics could be. I know for a fact she's Motley because of her patternless stomach, but the rest I'm not so sure about. She seems to be a type of Amel (she has orange eyes & pupils) but I hesitate to call her one because her color is more faded than that of a typical Amel. I'm thinking she could be some kind of hybrid? Then again, I don't know much about genetics. Here's some info on her parents, which might help determine her morph. Her mother is an Anery Ultramel Hurricane Motley and her father is a Lavender Ultramel Motley. The baby in question: (I also have pictures of her siblings, which I could send in later if you need more information)

Hey friend!

First off, corn-gratulations on your new baby! They're super duper cute and their coloration is just lovely.

I'm... A little concerned that the person who sold you this snake knew the morphs of the parents but doesn't know the morph of this snake. That's a big red flag for me. Is it that they hatched something unexpected, are they unsure of how to identify the phenotypes of various genes, or are they not taking the time to learn genetics and just admitting that they have no clue what they're doing??

...Moving on.

It's funny that you mention hybrids because Ultra is not a natural corn snake gene and is the result of hybridization! The Ultra gene came from crossing a grey rat snake with a corn snake. Ultra is allelic to Amel and can result in a third visual morph that's kinda in-between Ultra and Amel, and that's how we get Ultramel. If anybody remembers doing punnett squares in biology class, you may be able to visualize that if we were to breed two Ultramel snakes we'd have a clutch of babies that will hatch about 25% Ultra, 25% Amel, and 50% Ultramel.

So let's think about the possible combinations for the two parent snakes:

Anery Ultramel Motley X Lavender Ultramel Motley

Possible outcomes:

1:2 Ultramel Motley het Anery, Lavender

1:4 Ultra Motley het Anery, Lavender

1:4 Amel Motley het Anery, Lavender

The snake in your photo doesn't look like any of these. There's no hint of Ultra and they are amelanistic for sure, but we're seeing muted reds/yellows and enhanced peach tones which is more consistent with Lavender/Amel combos like Opal.

Not to say that Ultramel Motley is a particularly rare gene combination, but I'm suspicious that this seller knew their morphs specifically but didn't identify the babies so I'm going to say it's very, very likely that these parent snakes are siblings.

If that's the case, it would be reasonable to say that the actual genetics of the parents are Anery Ultramel Motley het Lavender and Lavender Ultramel Motley het Anery.

Possible outcomes:

2:16 Ultramel Motley

2:16 Ultramel Lavender Motley

2:16 Ultramel Anery Motley

2:16 Ultramel Moonstone Motley

1:16 Amel Motley

1:16 Opal Motley

1:16 Snow Motley

1:16 Lavender Snow Motley

1:16 Ultra Motley

1:16 Ultra Lavender Motley

1:16 Ultra Anery Motley

1:16 Ultra Moonstone Motley

So looking at that spread, we can see that Opal Motley, which your little one does strongly resemble, is in the list. They're a bit more orangey than expected for an Opal, so there may yet be something else in play. Or I could be totally wrong! That's an option, too!

If you wouldn't mind sharing sibling photos, as well as any/all information about the seller (privately if you prefer, up to you), I can grab my deerstalker hat and my calabash pipe and we'll see if we can't unravel this mystery!

[gopheryourpet]

2019 Tessera Ultramel Corn Snake het Caramel 50% Possible het Anery Motley Male. Trevor is eating frozen thawed rodents, has a great disposition and weighs 34 grams. As always these are photos of the actual snake available. Email us at ScalesForSale@GopherYourPet.com or call 682-414-0013. Payment plans, Credit/Debt Cards, Venmo, PayPal, and shipping are available. Kingwood, Texas $150.00. All sales are final. New GopherYourPet website coming soon Shipping to Canada is now available! (at Kingwood) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGqoEoOMzQ0/?igshid=1tktkkt9ya7j5

[gopheryourpet]

2019 Tessera Ultramel het Caramel 50% Possible het Anery Motley Corn Snake Male. Timber is eating frozen thawed rodents, weighs 31 grams, and has a great disposition. As always these are photos of the actual snake available. Email us at ScalesForSale@GopherYourPet.com or call 281-608-7745. Payment plans, Credit/Debt Cards, Venmo, PayPal, and shipping are available. Kingwood, Texas $150.00. All sales are final. www.GopherYourPet.com (at Kingwood) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBoKcs_MZ0M/?igshid=1je2zn3e92kgf

[gopheryourpet]

2019 Tessera Ultramel het Caramel 50% Possible het Anery Motley Corn Snake Male. Tarver is eating frozen thawed rodents, weighs 23 grams, and has a great disposition. As always these are photos of the actual snake available. Email us at ScalesForSale@GopherYourPet.com or call 281-608-7745. Payment plans, Credit/Debt Cards, Venmo, PayPal, and shipping are available. Kingwood, Texas $150.00. All sales are final. www.GopherYourPet.com (at Kingwood) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBlEzFZH-Tf/?igshid=17wfv7rsv4r4k