Stripe Corn Snakes
A Stripe corn snake has a plain white belly and lines down the back instead of saddles, but some cases fade to almost nothing or break into cubes. Because Stripe shares its gene with Motley, a Motley can carry a copy of Stripe without a reliable sign of it.
About the Stripe gene
Stripe is a corn snake pattern gene. It clears the checkers from the belly and pulls the blotched pattern out into lines along the body. This gene shows up in several forms. These range from snakes with hardly any pattern left to a clean four-line stripe.
Appearance
Two dark stripes starting at the neck and running in parallel down the back make a classic Stripe. These often join in the middle and break into dashes about two thirds of the way along. On each side, a thinner stripe runs along, which often becomes dots or dashes that break up further toward the tail while the flanks are clear. The head pattern is reduced and never joins the body stripes. These are a small V behind the eyes, or a pair of marks like eyebrows or horns, over a paler ground, with a narrow nose band or none. To match the ground colour, the eyes are brown or orange. The belly is solid white with no checkers, although colour can bleed up from the tail and the odd black freckle turns up. A few dots or dashes, or a plain look, are on the tail, and some Stripes have a slightly hypo-like cast.
A Stripe does not always look striped. Instead of paired stripes, a Cube Stripe runs a line of bowtie or cube shapes down the body. A Vanishing Stripe, sometimes shortened to VP, keeps the stripe for a third of the body or less, and Patternless carries almost none. Sunspot shows dark ovals on a light ground. All of these are genetically Stripe. A Motley with a pinstripe down its back is a different matter: that is a Motley pattern, not a sign the snake carries Stripe.
Genetics
A Het Stripe, 50% Het Stripe, 66% Het Stripe or Pos Het Stripe looks like a normal corn snake because Stripe is recessive. There is no super form. As Stripe and Motley are allelic, they are two versions of the same gene. A snake with one copy of each is sold as Motley/Stripe. It reads as a Motley and sometimes has blotches that fuse into short stripes, so it cannot be told from a plain Motley by eye with any certainty. Lemon Stripe (Caramel, Hypo, Stripe and Sunkissed) and Eclipse Stripe (Anery, Lavender, Stripe and Sunkissed) are the named combos.