The combination of the anerythristic "A" and bloodred recessive genes results in this beautiful corn. Unlike the pewters, all the males in this bloodline develop an "overspray" affect of coral or pink throughout most of the dorsal and lateral markings. Some of the females do also. There are trace amounts of yellow on the throats of most adults too.
This is a bloodred corn that appears to have been outcrossed with an upper keys corns. The overall coloration is influenced by the typical gold hues of the keys corns.
Adults are a stunning red with mostly bright red and white undersides. The markings usually fade and in some cases are nearly impossible to see in mature individuals.
Just when you thought we couldn't improve the bloodred corn, along comes the pewter. This is the combination of the charcoal (anerythristic "B") with the bloodred corn mutation.
NEW CORN SNAKE MUTATION -- TESSERA ---
This morph’s name derives from its lateral markings, which is reminiscent of mosaic pattern.
Distinguishing features:
1. Striking lateral mosaic or tessellated pattern that is consistent from neck to tail
2. Dramatically continuous striping, compared to known striped corn mutations
3. Unlike motley types, strong presence of black retained in patterns
4. Visually similar to striped motley, but Tessera is not recessively inherited
5. Most have checkered bellies (virtually absent in motley types)
6. Remarkably little pattern deviation within the morph --
Long story short; in 2007, Graham Criglow and KJUN (KJ Lodrigue) acquired some intriguing corn snakes. These unusual corns appeared to be striped motley Okeetees, but the paradox was that the founding mutation was striped; not motley. These F2s were expected to be striped, since they were produced from striped x Okeetee corns. In addition, the conspicuous solid black scales in all Tesseras is remarkable, considering that even the slightest presence of black is rare (nearly unique) in motley types. Graham gave me a male, and I immediately began breeding trials.
Early breeding results indicate that this is the first truly dominant-type pattern gene mutation in corns. In 2008, I bred a male phenotype to three normal-looking females, one being het for stripe, and two normal corns, het for no known mutations. In the first brood were Tesseras, Okeetees, stripes, and motlies; but no striped motlies. In the next two broods from two sister Okeetees having no familial mutant relatives, roughly 50% of the progeny were Tesseras, and all others were Okeetees. For the first time, KJUN will breed two phenotypes together in 2009, with hopes for the discovery of a super form. Keep in mind that our evidence at this time is from three pairings only, so further breeding trials are necessary to more accurately describe this mutation, and its mode of inheritance. Other than appearance, all physiology is classically cornsnake, though the pattern complex resembles that of other species (including pattern mutations in other species). Arguably, no obvious (or cryptic) hybrid markers have been observed.
Besides having more solid black pattern attributes than motley types, their dorsal striping is atypical, (compared to striped and motley corns) via Tessera’s lack of pattern diversity and its uncharacteristic reproducibility. You never know how much striping you’ll get upon breeding striped or striped motley corns, but 85+% of all Tesseras have the same general volume of striping and lateral design. With very few line breaks in all progeny so far, the dorsal stripe begins at the neck, and extends back to the tail. Remarkable about this stripe is the general continuity, infrequency of breaks, and its extension to the tail tip in most specimens. Striping in motley-types only rarely extends to the tail, and almost never past the pelvic girdle region, onto the tail. The stripe configuration in Tesseras is like that of most striped motlies, (but unlike the motlies), the dorso-lateral stripes are bounded on the outer edges with a complementary black stripe, approximately the width of one scale. The width of the dorsal stripe is invariable in some, and erratic in others. Possibly the most dissimilar pattern feature (compared to motley types) is that most of the Tesseras so far, have classic corn snake belly checkering. Those that have little or no belly pattern, have a brightly-colored ventral-lateral (nearly contiguous) boundary line of markings.
