Tessera

Tessera head pattern can be any range of normal corn snake head pattern. The colors will match the body, and can be shades of red, orange, brown, tan, with some black. Eye color will typically match the body color, with a black pupil.

The body of a Tessera corn deviates significantly from the typical saddles of a normal corn. Replacing the saddles is a narrow, bold singular stripe down the back, of the lighter background color (usually tan, pale orange, or creamy yellow). The stripe is outlined by black, dark brown, or gray. The stripe can range in pattern from a perfect, unbroken stripe from neck to tail tip, or it can be considerably broken up into dashes. Most stripes fall somewhere in between the two extremes, with a mostly complete stripe that contains a few notches sticking out or cutting in to the pattern, with a few total breaks.

The side pattern of a Tessera corn is what gives the Tessera its name - a highly tessellated pattern consisting of the lighter background color and the darker saddle color. The degree of messiness can vary, but most Tesseras have a moderately busy side pattern. Typically the pieces of the tessellation on the sides are outlined in black, dark gray, or brown.

Thus far, no one has been able to visually distinguish a super Tessera (homozygous) from a heterozygous Tessera.

The belly of the Tessera corn is highly variable. Any checker pattern can be present, including solid white with no checkers, to nearly solid black filled with checkers. Most Tesseras will exhibit something in between the two extremes, often with few checkers on the neck and gaining more checkers further down. Checkers, if present, will typically be black.

The tail will match the body pattern and color.