Arctic

Highly variable, but on normal Arctics, it tends to clean the head stamp up a bit, and on Super Arctics, it messes it up a bunch and makes the head stamp look sort of splattered. ^[3]

Other traits that are common with Arctics are speckling near the headstamp and an occasional black outline around the head stamp as well that is sometimes followed by a crisp, clean white outline. ^[4]

They are generally shades of grey, although they do have a bit of brown peeking through. The Super Arctic begins as an almost pure black snake that, after several sheds, lightens to a black and grey snake with “frosted” saddles and black eyes. ^[5]

The Arctic mutation is a kind of Axanthic. As the heterozygote genotype… the plain Arctic… they look like lesser Axanthics. The general look is grey and with just a very reduced amount of colour. If you look at them closely, you can see a faded pinkish hue on the sides of the body, soft greenish pattern on the back, just a small number of little yellow spots on the almost black belly and an orange-pink colored scale on the cloaca. Of course they can vary a bit. So they can have the general grey look but some of them are high contrast with a creamy white background color and dark (nearly black) pattern. From the time of hatching until the first regular shed they start to muddy up a little bit and you start to worry if this is indeed something special. But you will stop doubting right from the moment when they shed…a bright hognose with greenish pattern on a creamy colored background. ^[6]