Lava Corn Snakes
A lava corn snake strips out more black than a standard hypo, leaving greyish purple where the dark pigment was on a low-contrast red and orange animal. Hatchlings are greyer and higher in contrast, so a young lava can look very different from the adult it becomes.
About the Lava gene
Lava is one of the strongest hypo-type genes in the corn snake. What would be black comes through as a soft greyish purple, on an animal that is mostly red with some orange and very low pattern contrast. Breeders use it in ice, lavamel, diamond, topaz and persimmon.
Appearance
Most adult lavas are mostly red with some orange. The saddles are darker than the ground colour, edged in grey, light purple or sometimes light brown. There is some white mixed into the orange as the sides fade toward the belly. A wide band across the nose and a V behind the eyes keep the usual corn snake pattern on the head. This part can be paler than the body and is deep orange and red at low contrast. The eyes are orange or dark red with a deep ruby pupil, though some animals have pupils close to black. On the belly, the checkers sit in the normal places but come through grey with a purple tint and sometimes have red or orange in them. This grey-purple in place of black is what separates a lava from a standard hypo. The tail follows the body. Hatchlings carry more contrast and some grey in the ground colour, and usually gain saturation and lose contrast as they grow, so a young lava can look quite different from the adult it becomes. Joe Pierce's Landrace Lava line is kept for very low contrast and deep red saturation.
Genetics
Because Lava is recessive, animals that are Het Lava, 50% Het Lava, 66% Het Lava and Pos Het Lava look like normal corn snakes. This is a separate gene from the original hypomelanistic. The first lavas were found to be incompatible with the hypo mutations in the hobby. This is why it also goes by Hypo C and Trans Hypo. Ice is the result of pairing it with anerythristic and is also sold as ice ghost. Pairings with amelanistic produce lavamel. With charcoal, it makes diamond. With caramel, it makes topaz. With kastanie, it makes persimmon. Lavalanche stacks lava with amelanistic, anerythristic and diffused. In 1994, Joe Pierce produced the first lavas from Okeetee stock. Gordon Schuett had bred that stock down from wild-caught corns of Jasper County, South Carolina.