Stripes vs Tessera Stripes - Please help with IDing them

So, as the title says. The breeding was Anery Stripe x Tessera het Amel Anery Stripe. Apart from some clearly normal patterned hatchlings and some tessera patterned hatchlings, I got a good amount of stripey things. I know some of them must be tessera stripes (well over a 99% chance of that), but I'm not sure which. I'll try to share a few photos of each hatchling. If necessary, I can take new, better ones of particular features. Please share your thoughts!

I would also very much like to know how you would price these. Since I'm not 100% sure which is which, I'm not entirely comfortable with selling them for tessera stripe prices. I don't want to mislead anyone and sell something as what it's not. On the other hand, I don't want to sell all my tessera stripes as regular stripes either. It's quite the difference in price, and to be frank, I could really use the money to look after the snakes for the coming year. How would you handle this?

Okay, here come the snakes. I will spread them across several posts due to the 12 image limit.

Number 1. I suspect that this one is "just" an anery stripe due to the dashing down the tail, but if you think otherwise, please let me know. It does have a bit of a faded head pattern though.





Number 5. Pretty light colored snake and the back stripes start off pretty thin, but widen quickly and while they fade, they stay visible all the way to the tail. Also displays the weird faded out head pattern that some people have noticed in their tessera stripes. Suspected anery tessera stripe.





Number 6. Suspected normal stripe because of the variation in the width of the stripe, and the fact that it breaks up down the body. Very brightly colored snake, too.





Number 7. Suspected "regular" stripe, because of the broken up stripes down its back. Also has a very dark and clear head pattern.

Number 8. Suspected anery tessera stripe because of the faded head pattern and the fact that the stripes fade, but persist all the way down the body.





Number 10. Not sure what to make of this one. Has particularly thin dorsal stripes and is VERY light colored, but once again the stripes persist all the way to the tail. Thoughts?





Number 11. Very evenly, dark-striped snake. Not sure whether this is tessera or not, but it certainly does look like one. I had two extremely similar looking hatchlings last year.





Number 14, the last stripey thing in the clutch. Also very evenly striped and the stripes fade towards the tail, but persist. The head pattern is rather dark though, but still smudgy.

Sorry I can't help much but just wanted to say that is some gorgeous photography! And some awesome subjects too!

Tavia said:

Sorry I can't help much but just wanted to say that is some gorgeous photography! And some awesome subjects too!

Click to expand...

Thanks! That's very nice to hear ^^

As for the question... anyone? Cause I really don't know what to do in terms of pricing. I can't really keep them until I can test them either, so...

Ive had that issue this year as well, but it seems I have only hatched out tessera stripes and weirdly no normal stripes.

The tessera stripe is much thinner and boldly defined. like this one

and also you have some awesome photos and backgrounds going on. I really like the one with the anery on the gray rocks

JTBelcastro - did you by any chance get motleys from the clutch? Yours seem more like tessera motleys or tessera motley/stripes

And thank you for the compliments on the photography Takes aa hell of a lot of time to take pictures of the babies, but I love doing it

I did not get any normal motleys from the clutch, so yes you may be right about them being tessera motleys but I am not yet sure

JTBelcastro said:

The tessera stripe is much thinner and boldly defined. like this one

Click to expand...

I would actually say your guy in the foreground there is a tessera motley (motley/motley or motley/stripe genotype). His striping isn't as bold as many tessera motleys, but the giveaway is the thickness of his central dorsal stripe, between the two brown lines--it would be wider on a tessera stripe.


Isoldael, sorry it took me awhile to answer you! I think my take on each of them is the same as yours:

#1-stripe
#5-tessera stripe
#6-stripe
#7-stripe
#8-tessera stripe
#10-tessera stripe
#11-tessera stripe (?)
#14-tessera stripe (?)

The last two I'm less certain about. I've also hatched babies that looked like them, but didn't keep one to prove whether it was definitely a tessera. To me, though, the deciding factor is the very blurred and light head pattern. ("Light," as in, melanin-reduced.) Some of your stripes have a reduced head pattern, true, but to me they look more like the effect of masque.

As far as pricing, I have no idea what things go for in Europe. O.O Are you not actually in the Netherlands?

Regardless, some of those anery striped tesseras are to die for. I'd be interested to see the parents, if you have pics of them?

Thanks a lot for your reply, crturley! That's very helpful
With pricing I didn't mean the actual numbers, but rather - would you be confident in pricing them as (anery) tessera stripes at the risk of them not being that? Or would you err on the safe side and price them all as "just" stripes? I'm simply not sure what to do as I don't want to (unintentionally) mislead anyone, but I also don't want to underprice.

I don't think there is masque in either of them, and I didn't get any normal patterned hatchlings that were masque to prove that out, so I'll assume there is none in the clutch.

I'll post some pictures of the parents once I'm at my pc later today. I'm pretty much in love with the looks of them both, so I'm thrilled to see that they also produce pretty hatchlings

So, pictures, as promised!

This is the sire, Nash. His nose has been going white recently, which is an interesting development. Otherwise, I just love his stark greys and strong yellows



This was him as a baby, the day I got him. Unfortunately I don't have too many great pictures from back then:



And the dam, Lilith. Not the most recent picture, but shows off her pattern nicely:



And this was her as a hatchling:





I'm very happy with the two of them. I think they look amazing and their personalities are great to boot. Nash isn't the sharpest pencil though... He always eats his mice butt-first, and once managed to get himself stuck inside a piece of wood. I ended up sawing him out... oh well I still love him.

I'm sorry I'm also not much help with the ID, but I'd like to echo that those outdoor baby photos of your clutch are incredible! Just jaw dropping beautiful photography.

Lord, Nash is a beautiful snake. (Not to say Lilith isn't.) No wonder the baby anery tessera stripes are so perfect. I don't suppose you export . . .?

Anyway, his baby photo explains what I was wondering--he also has a strangely blurry head pattern. Not saying he's a tessera, of course--just that something else may be going on here.

Regardless, if it were me, I would feel comfortable offering all (except maybe the last two) at tessera stripe prices, though I would probably inform the customer as much as possible. Earlier this year I sold a probable dilute anery striped tessera at striped pricing--this was prior to my striped tessera male's clutch proving him out--and I'm kicking myself a bit.

As for the last two, you could either keep them, or maybe split the difference between the stripe cost and stripe tessera cost? If you had a way to get #14 to the states, I'd take him/her (at full tessera pricing) to raise and test.

@BlackBear123 - Thank you! Took me forever to get them to sit still enough for pictures

@Crturley - I can only agree. I was always in love with anery stripes (which is why I got one to begin with), but Nash has only made that love grow stronger. It'll be so hard to sell these hatchlings, haha Nash does have somewhat of a blurry head pattern. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of his parents - the seller showed me pictures when I bought them at a show, but I never got their contact details... rookie mistake.

Thanks for the advice on pricing, I think I might do just that . As for shipping to the states... I can get the snakes to Hamm or Houten, I think some US breeders show up there regularly. We could see if one of them would be willing to take a snake back to the states with them, but I imagine it wouldn't be cheap to get one to you.

Here's an interesting read that delves into Tessera Stripes. Picture examples included.

http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140919&highlight=hatchling

I've read that, but thanks for the link

Isoldael said:

I've read that, but thanks for the link

Click to expand...

Oops! Good luck with them. No matter what they're beautiful and you definitely have some great photography skills.

Edit: After glancing over the photos again #8 and 10 look like GREAT candidates to me due to their minimal patterning and "highway" stripe. #11 Appears to have a "highway" of dorsal color as well.

Potentially #14 as well, but see how the side stripe is pretty dark?

I'm an untrained eye though, hopefully Jenn of Ghost House sees this and weights in!!!

Thanks Jess for the vote of confidence. I do know this thread by Wendy was most helpful when I was trying to id my clutch
http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140919, but I don't have much to add as all mine are actually motley tessera het stripe. The one snake I hatched that I now believe was a striped tessera I thought at that time was just stripe and sold.
However, I tend to agree with the guesses of crturley and BTW I am really admiring the beautiful snakes in the clutch.