Blotch on belly?

Hi there.

I'm posting about my first corn snake - her name is Zelda and she is an albino okeetee.

Anyway, I brought her home about four days ago and she already ate her first pinkie mouse. My concern stems from a dark blotch on her belly - (it looks like it might be internal, of course she has lighter coloured blotches of the same shade elsewhere on her body - this one always attracts my attention when I look at her though.) Could she be constipated? Or is it part of her pattern? It's difficult to tell if what I am seeing is internal though she is quite light coloured.

I mean, she's eaten thus far, so should I have any reason to be worrying about it? If so, what do I need to do to assist her in relief?

Jennifer...

Without seeing pics it would be hard to say for sure, but it sounds like what you are seeing is the pinky mouse as it moves thru her system...If you can post a pic of her

I can remember at a show selling someone a Blizzard corn and later that day they came back all worried about a dark lump in the body, thinking it had a tumor or something. I took it out of the cup to see what they were talking about and they pointed it out to me. It was about a third of the way down the body from the head, sure enough. When we examined it closely, backlighting the body with a light, we saw that the lump was moving rhythmically.

Yep, we were looking at the beating heart of the snake, seen right through the skin!

Bear in mind that amelanistic varieties of snakes have pretty much translucent skin as babies, so you can see all kinds of internal organs that would not be visible in a normal colored animal. Many people will see the gall bladder and get concerned over that as well. Food in the digestive track is also highly visible.

Thanks both of you - these are things I hadn't actually thought of. I'll try to post pictures of her sometime soon - I was wondering if it might've been some organs but I didn't look closely enough.

I'll take a look at her in a few minutes - thanks again.