Scaleless Corn Snakes for sale in the UK

A scaleless corn snake has soft, bare skin on its head, sides and back because the Scaleless gene removes most of the scales. This skin feels like suede or velvet. Because the pattern softens and the colour usually appears richer than on a scaled corn of the same morph, a scaleless animal feels and looks quite different from one with scales.

Appearance

Most of the body has no scales, but a few small round ones often stay, mostly along the back, and the tail often keeps some. Ventral scales remain on the belly, which are normal on most animals, but some show belly scales that are smaller, rounded or split and some lack the scale over the vent. The skin looks wrinkled because of the lack of scales. The colours stay within the usual corn range of orange, red and tan with smaller amounts of black and white, and they are often more saturated than on an animal with scales. The side pattern can shrink to drips running down from the saddles or simple circles, and the saddles become smooth, rounded blobs that lose their sharp, jagged edges, often with thick black borders that fade toward the centre.

The eye cap is always present and the head is almost bare except for scales around the lips and nose. Because the scales around them are missing, the eyes look bigger than a normal corn's, although the eye itself is normal in size. The head pattern reads softer, with the band across the nose often replaced by pale grey, and the V behind the eyes stays.

Genetics

Because Scaleless is recessive, animals that are Het Scaleless, 50% Het Scaleless, 66% Het Scaleless and Pos Het Scaleless look like normal corn snakes. You can confirm a het without breeding by using a DNA test for Scaleless. The mutation is in the EDARADD gene, which is part of the EDA pathway that builds skin appendages. A 2023 Science Advances study by Athanasia Tzika and colleagues used CRISPR-Cas9 to knock out EDARADD to recreate scaleless skin, and the belly scales still formed. Microscale is a related corn snake mutation that is allelic to Scaleless. The compound of these two is sold as Microscaleless. Any colour or pattern morph can carry Scaleless. Every scaleless corn snake descends from a cross between a corn snake and a Great Plains rat snake (Pantherophis emoryi), so the line is technically a hybrid. Richard Dijoux produced the first in France in 2002.

Known issues

With no scales over its back and sides, the skin is exposed to scratches from prey and scrapes from rough surfaces. Do not put decor or hides that are sharp or rough in the enclosure. Feed the snake pre-killed prey instead of live. There is debate regarding the breeding of the morph. Some keepers see a scaleless snake as a deformed animal, while others object to its hybrid ancestry.