Corn Snake morphs and genetics
Almost entirely simple recessive genetics, which makes the corn snake the species most worth learning inheritance on before you spend money.
Working with corn snake genetics
Corn snakes are the cleanest genetics in the hobby. Nearly every established morph is a simple recessive, so a pairing's outcome really is the 25/50/25 split a textbook Punnett square predicts, and a beginner can reason their way to the right answer.
That clarity is also why so many well-known combinations exist: Snow is Amelanistic plus Anerythristic, Ghost is Anerythristic plus Hypomelanistic, Blizzard is Amelanistic plus Charcoal. None of those is a gene.
What makes this species different
Two allelic pairs are the exception to the simplicity. Amelanistic and Ultra sit at the same locus, so an animal carrying one of each is an Ultramel — a compound het that looks like its own morph rather than a carrier. Motley and Stripe are allelic in the same way. This is the friendliest place in herpetoculture to understand what an allelic series actually is.
Allelic groups
Genes in the same group share a locus, so an animal has only two slots between them — they can never be inherited independently or stacked as separate supers.
- Amelanistic · Ultra
- Motley · Stripe
Every curated corn snake gene
Grouped by mode of inheritance. This is the dataset the HerpSync calculator runs on, published in full — the flags in the last column are what a standard Punnett square gets wrong.
Recessive (21)
Two copies to showNeeds a copy from each parent to be visible. One copy makes a het — an animal that looks normal and carries the gene.
- AmelanisticAllelic
No melanin — red/orange. Allelic with Ultra. Also called: Amel, Albino.
- Anerythristic
No red pigment — grey/black. Also called: Anery, Anery A.
- Bloodred
Diffused pattern, red. Also called: Diffused.
- Buf
Reduced-pattern recessive.
- Caramel
Yellow/caramel tones.
- Charcoal
Another anerythrism locus. Also called: Anery B.
- Dilute
Washed-out coloration.
- Hypomelanistic
Reduced melanin. Also called: Hypo, Hypo A.
- Kastanie
Chestnut hypo-type.
- Lava
Reduced melanin variant.
- Lavender
Lavender/pastel ground.
- Masque
Head/face pattern alteration.
- MotleyAllelic
Clean belly; pattern aberrancy. Allelic with Stripe.
- Palmetto
Mostly white with scattered scales.
- Scaleless
Lacks most scales.
- Strawberry
Pink/red hypo line.
- StripeAllelic
Longitudinal stripes. Allelic with Motley.
- Sunkissed
Hypo-type from Kisatchie corns.
- Sunrise
Bright reduced-melanin line.
- Terrazzo
Mosaic-like dorsal pattern.
- UltraAllelic
Hypo-melanism; allelic with Amelanistic (compound = Ultramel).
Dominant (1)
One copy shows, two look the sameOne copy is enough to see the trait, and two copies look no different from one — so there is no super form to breed for.
- Tessera
Dorsal stripe with lateral pattern.
Breeding and incubation
Clutches incubate around 60 days at 27–29°C, and females are usually bred from about eighteen months at an appropriate weight. Corn snakes are prolific enough that a single season produces real sample sizes, which is when recorded outcomes start to be worth comparing against predicted ones.
- Scientific name
- Pantherophis guttatus
- Group
- Colubrids
- Reproduction
- Egg-laying
- Incubation
- ~60 days
- Maturity
- ~18 months
- Young are called
- Hatchlings in a clutch
Timings are husbandry-typical approximations used for projections and reminders, not veterinary scheduling. Every figure can be adjusted per workspace.
Try a pairing
Pick genes for two corn snake parents and see the full odds — per gene and per combination — with no account and nothing to install.
Common questions
What is an Ultramel corn snake, genetically?
An Ultramel carries one Amelanistic allele and one Ultra allele. Because the two sit at the same locus, the animal has no wild-type copy and shows an intermediate appearance — it is a compound het, not a het for either gene alone.
Is Snow a corn snake gene?
No. Snow is the combination of two recessive genes, Amelanistic and Anerythristic, in the same animal. HerpSync stores the two genes and derives the combination name, which is why the calculator can predict Snow from parents that are not themselves Snow.
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