New entrants start arriving at HMSG

Eighteen out of the twenty five eggs laid remain viable and, having first tentatively poked his/her head out of the egg yesterday, the latest addition to our community was fully emerged and very perky indeed this morning.

The first of our corn snake offspring is a lively little chap and none too keen on interruptions as Miss Evans discovered this morning as it darted and nipped whilst she tried to coax it into its newly prepared home.  His/her beautiful black and grey markings are quite different to those of the proud parents.  We eagerly await the arrival of the remaining seventeen siblings, it will be very colourful in the Biology department when they all hatch!

	HMSG's Resident Corn Snakes (Elaphe guttata, a non-venomous constrictor) Buster, a 'ghost morph' male (Hypomelanistic + Anerythristic A) and Beauty, an amelanistic or 'red albino' female.  A recessive genetic trait, where the dark skin pigment is reduced.
Beauty laid 25 eggs on 18th March 2010
First egg hatched overnight 25/26th May 2010 (68 days)
	More on the way, looks like another red albino.
The next three arrivals.
28 May, No. 14 hatches.  Carefully transferred to an individual brood box, and then weighed.  7.3g for this albino.  They should shed their skins for the first time at 3 days old.
We are really interested in this one egg that is twice the size of all the others.
2 June:  17 now hatched.  One has shed for the first time (Snake No.4)

Classification of the Corn Snake:

• Kingdom = Animalia (all living organisms except plants and bacteria)

• Phylum = Chordata (animals with the nerve cord of the central nervous system located above the digestive system)

• Class – Reptilia (cold-blooded vertebrates that breathe through the lungs, not gills, and usually have scales and claws)

• Order - Squamata (the lizards and snakes; defined on internal characteristics of the skull and skeleton

• Suborder - Serpentes (only snakes; no external usable legs; no eyelids or external ear opening)

• Family - Colubridae (rat snakes, garter snakes, other common snakes)

• Genus - Elaphe

• Species - Elaphe guttata

Corn snakes got their name both from the pattern on their belly, which looks like 'Indian corn' [maize or sweet corn], and from old southern U.S. farmers who stored their harvested corn in wooden buildings called cribs.  Rats and mice were attracted to the cribs to feed on the corn, and corn snakes were attracted to the cribs to feed on the rodents, much to the delight and appreciation of the farmers.