Tessera Morph ID Help
 

I picked up this guy at an expo today (my first ever expo, I’m so glad I found a friend to bring home with me). I was drawn to him right away because he his funky pattern but when I asked the breeder said he was just a normal tessera bred with a cool copper/brown wild type. My initial thought was that he is hypomelanistic... sunkissed maybe? If anyone could clear up my confusion I would be appreciative! He’s also the half brother to my okeetee tessera, so that’s cool too!

I agree with the seller. A normal tessera. Definitely not hypo or sun kissed.
Congrats on your new addition!

Thanks, I already love him! He looks so different from my other snake, it's cool that there's that much variation.

Congrats! Nice pick up :)

-Tonya

Thanks!

Now I'm curious, is it the tessera gene that knocks out the black pigment on the first 1/3 of his belly scales? And the lack of black in his dorsal patterning--is this something he might have inherited from his wild type parent? I've seen pictures of the tessera that produced him and that snake looks much more similar to this snake's half brother. Does it all come down to the fact that there's so much natural variation in the patterning and colors of classic corns? I think the the thing I find most interesting on Virgil is his (lack of) a normal head pattern.

A lot of natural variation. Also I've noticed that tesseras can have variations of belly pattern. I have tesseras with almost normal belly pattern like a wild type, some like yours with it all pushed to the center in black line or pushed to the edges of the belly almost unnoticeable.
I notched in your first post that the head pattern was a little odd but I have seen similar.

Yes, my okeetee tessera has a lot of very dark and defined belly checkers, and they merge to form a solid strip at his tail... I suppose that makes sense for an okeetee. Very cool, thanks for your insight!

Maybe diffused in there? Something is causing the muted side pattern.

I have a similar looking (color-wise) Tessera that I cant determine whether she's a hypo or not. I tried breeding her with an Amber and produced hypo looking clutch. The best thing to do is to test breed her with a Hypo pair.