Lavender Corn Snakes
A lavender corn snake swaps the usual red and orange for pale grey, pink and peach, with deep ruby pupils and often frosted saddles. Hatchlings start duller and browner, and the lavender tones only build as the snake grows.
About the Lavender gene
The lavender gene replaces the orange and red of a corn snake with shades of peach, pink and soft grey. While no scale is truly purple, the blend of pinks and pale greys looks like lavender. This gene is behind some of the gentlest colours in the hobby, including Opal.
Appearance
Adults are usually pale grey with medium grey saddles, both often washed with pink or peach. The saddles often have a slightly darker border in pale brown or grey, and many show frosting: white blotches inside a saddle that would otherwise be solid. The belly checkers are in the saddle colour instead of black. The head keeps the normal corn snake V behind the eyes and band across the nose, in low-contrast pale grey, pink, peach and white, often with pink blushing behind the eyes, and the head pattern may fade with age. Irises of the eyes are anywhere from dark wine to slate grey or dark blue, with a deep ruby pupil. Females tend to have less colour than males. The lavender tones build as the snake matures, as hatchlings are duller and browner than adults.
Genetics
Because Lavender is recessive, a Pos Het Lavender, 66% Het Lavender, 50% Het Lavender, or Het Lavender looks like a normal corn snake. In 2020, a PNAS study traced the gene to a single nonsense mutation in LYST. This gene regulates lysosome trafficking. The animal lightens as a whole because the mutation changes the pigment-bearing vesicles in all three of the snake's colour cell types. Orchid adds sunkissed, Plasma adds diffused and Moonstone adds anerythristic. Opal is Lavender with amelanistic and it matures to a pinkish white with soft pink and peach highlights. From a wild-caught corn bred to a snow, Rich Zuchowski hatched the first in 1985. His wife named it Mocha for the chocolate colour of the new hatchlings.
Known issues
There is some speculation that lavenders tend to hatch with spinal kinks. It remains speculation: no breeding trials have tested whether the kinking is tied to the gene or is heritable at all. Most lavenders in the hobby now come from outcrossed lines, which likely lowers the risk. Ask the seller if kinks have turned up in the line if you plan to breed.