#grizzled

So Masque came about because of the Bloodred morph. Bloodred was originally thought to be a single gene which caused pattern reduction, a white tummy, and deep brick red coloration. Breeders soon began to notice that outcrossing a Bloodred with another morph that was heterozygous for Bloodred was resulting in snakes with white tummies but not the same deep red, or pattern reduction on the head and tummy but not a solid white tummy! It was then that they began to realize that Bloodred was not a single gene but three genes being simultaneously expressed: Red Coat, a recessive red-enhancing trait; Diffused, a recessive pattern-reducing and belly checker-eliminating trait; and Masque, a dominant or possibly co-dominant trait which affects headstamp expression and causes an overall "brightening" color effect.

Since Diffused and Masque were discovered together, and Masque is a dominant trait, there's a really good chance that any Diffused snake is also displaying Masque. It's usually pretty easy to tell, just look at the headstamp! Let's take a look at Griswold, a Diffused Ghost corn snake. Here he is as a baby:

You can see how the pattern on his head is reduced to weird eyebrows and the patterning on his sides fades to just about nothing as it reaches his belly.

Here he is today:

(Excuse the chubby tum, he just had dinner and was kind enough to indulge me messing with him a little bit)

As you can see, he is definitely Diffused with that solid white belly and he's also displaying the Masque trait with the severely reduced headstamp.

So how do we know a snake is Masque without Diffused?

Chammers is here to help us out! One thing Masque does is cause overall lightening/brightening of color on a snake. Here's baby Chammers with a sibling. Can you tell the difference?

It's subtle, but the lighter colored Anery snake on the right is Mrs. Chamamndler Bing himself. In this early stage of life, his headstamp is not significantly different from his non-Masque sibling. But look at what happened as he got older:

And that brings us to today:

That looks a lot more like what we expect from a Masque, right?

And if you weren't 100% sure that Chammers is indeed Masque, we can take a look at his tummy:

You'll note a white line between the checkers, almost creating an "open zipper" pattern. All masques will have this white line down the middle, and the line is wider for high-expression Masques. Chammers is heterozygous for Masque, meaning he has only one copy of the gene, so he has a 50/50 chance of passing the gene down to any offspring he sires.

Okay so what the heck is a Super Masque? Remember me saying that Masque is potentially co-dominant? This term refers to a dominant trait that expresses somewhat when heterozygous but expresses more or differently when homozygous. Palmetto is a really good example of a co-dominant trait. A het Palmetto looks almost hypomelanistic, with bright coloration and reduced melanin. They don't look the same as a Palmetto but they're a different visual phenotype than a classic corn snake. A hom Palmetto is leucistic (all white) with color sprinkles.

Where it gets hairy is when we ask how to tell the difference between Masque and Super Masque. Some breeders claim that you can tell because the belly checkers will be almost completely absent and the headstamp will be reduced to just tiny eyebrows, as in MA22M1 here:

(Who is diffused, by the way)

But I've seen enough snakes to not feel confident agreeing with that assessment. Case in point: Pumpkin Spice.

Pumpkin Spice was the result of two Masque parents. Every clutch she has laid has been 100% Masque babies. Look at her tummy as a baby:

The split of her belly checkers is so wide that she barely has any checkers at all! So she's almost definitely a Super Masque, right?

But look at that headstamp over the years. :/

Despite everything else pointing to her being homozygous for Masque, her headstamp looks positively Classic. If anything, it's gotten LESS Masque-y over time!

So my assessment? Masque is more likely a simple dominant trait with low or high expression. I don't think it's co-dominant and it would take some evidence I haven't seen yet to convince me. I do, however, find that it's helpful to use "Super" for dominant traits like Masque, Tessera, etc. to indicate that a baby is homozygous for the trait as this may affect breeding plans and/or pricing.