Fig. 1

Color pattern of wild-type, Motley, Stripe, and Motley/Stripe corn snakes. A The wild-type pattern consists of dorsal and lateral blotches and black and white ventral checkers. B Motley individuals present elongated dorsal blotches that tend to fuse, especially at the anterior part of the body, with highly reduced lateral blotches and white ventral scales. C In Stripe individuals, the dorsal and lateral blotches are replaced by four stripes and the ventral scales are also white. Both the motley (m^m) and stripe (m^s) alleles are fully recessive to the wild-type allele: m^m/ + and m^s/ + individuals exhibit a wild-type phenotype as in A. D The phenotype of most m^m/m^s animals is intermediate, combining fused blotches and stripes