Wow, 3 new mutations from www.ballpythons.de

Well, there's no way to edit it now, so there's little sense in complaining about it either.
I got the information I was curious about anyhow. Thanks.

Hey everyone. Yea, this probably should not have been put on the boi, however,...............I saw this type of morph at the Raleigh, NC show a few months back. I can not however, think of the dealer that had it. But I remember him saying it was a Ghana import and that he wanted $10k for it. It was funny, he was calling it the "WTF ball." I asked him about it. He had told me that he had no clue what it was...........or if it would end up being an actual trait that can be proven out. The fact is, there's a lot of weird stuff coming out of Africa here lately. It's kinda exciting. But this is not the first time that I've seen these.

10k for an unproven morph? Yeah, let me just sell my house.......

Hey All,

The WTF at the raleigh nc show was on my tables.

10k for an uproven is not an overly high price across the board of species. I have been a part of/or witness to initial offers of new morphs of boas, balls, corns, and even a black rat and rattlesnake. All of them except the black rat started at the 5 grand range and bidding took them higher.

With the way the ball market is 10k is cheap. 5 years ago it would have been 250k!

I know prices are falling but even this late in the year at the s.c show I sold balls in a 10 to one ratio compared to all other species on my tables and I had over 20 species and localities!!

thanks
ben

Originally Posted by bcherps

10k for an uproven is not an overly high price across the board of species.

Ben,

People can ask whatever the want for anything. Market determines the price, as you pointed out. Calling something "unproven" is a legitimate way of describing something. Calling it a "mutation" before it's been proven can be seen as misleading.

Hey,

Since I work in the molecular genetics field I want to play devils advocate here. Here is my question:

Why does an animal have to have a visable change in appearence that produces look alike with calculatable odds to be called a mutation?



Obviously something is going on to produce a different phenotype. It could be modifier traits( up and down regulation), abnormal protien synthesis, failed stem cell migration during embryogenesis, epigenes, conditional alleles, familial genes, etc,etc,etc. I work with these types of mutations in my lab all the time and we may wait one generation for the correct recombination of dna to generate a critter we need, another college took seven years and dozens of generations to cleave a lethal section of dna off so he could produce the needed mutation for his experiments.

And on the other hand point mutations (mutations that only affect one single base pair) happen all the time without change in phenotype. They are rightly mutants but not of economic interest to the hobby.


I produced a two headed rosey boa last year, that was definately a mutant, and now resides in the Department of Comparative Zoology at Harvard Universtiy. But I may never produce another two headed rosey from that pair in my lifetime. Doesn't mean this wasn't a mutation becuase it only happened once.


My proposed answer is that many of the hobbyist are too focused on the money, and are too impressed with recent books with pretty pictures, by people who in the public eye are gods for producing this or that. I have seen some pretty out of whack statements as to what codom is, and incomplete dominant is, etc, etc. I think anyone who is truely interested in what they are breeding and what cuases thier critters to look the way they do should pick up a first year college genetics book. Then start doing some reading about chematophores on pubmed, and this will lead to some better insight into what is really going on under the skin.


It does all truely boil down to "something is worth what you can get for it, right now". Anything else is salemanship, and I think the hobby as a whole has been oversold on the recessive, codom, dominant as the only three genetic choices controlling color.

thanks
ben

All well and good Ben, but I've studied genetics as well. Most of the reproducible ball python phenotypes are shown to be inherited as simple Mendelian traits with, of course, some "supers" or "co-doms" or whatever one calls them, thrown in. Many human traits are inherited the same way. My simple point was that calling those snakes "mutations" implies that the DNA that controls those traits can be inherited according to Mendelian genetics. That was perhaps a misrepresentation. Otherwise every and any funny looking snake (or human) can be called a mutation. A line needs to be drawn. The fact that many "different looking" snakes came out of one clutch may well be, and in fact likely is, due to a genetic mutation, but may well also have been due to incubation conditions, and may not be reproducible. Implying that it is a reproducible "mutation" without proving it can be seen as misleading.

The issue of price/value/etc is, as we agree, set by the market no matter what it is. My only issue is that it should be called what it is.

Hey,

I definately agree with you that no one should be misled/cheated by sleazy salesmanship on anything whether it be a ball python, house, or used car(side note is anyone else disturbed by the amount of used car salesmen in the bp world!). However, I am bringing up friendly arguments in hopes that anyone listening/reading will be provoked into looking at something through another angle.

It can be a mutation without being readily reproducable by one or two crosses. Some things may only be familial due to a series of point mutations. How many of us have heard you have your moms eyes or your dads nose. Is it a mutation that causes you to get them-could be argued either way. But when you take 30,000 years of seperation then you get the difference we see between europeans and say asians. Very different in appearence, due to epigenetics, vast inbreeding in pre-civilized populations, and some early natural selection.

What about male pattern baldness? It is sex linked and thusly skips a generation. Normally a male has adult onset baldness if his moms dad was bald. Now the genes were passed through mom, but normally she doesn't become bald. This is pretty simple and clear cut, but if we had a trait in the ball world it may not become apparent in the home breeders collection becuase not many people line breed for 2-3 generations, across all the offspring. And with adult onset traits, such as IMG, and DMG how many breeders keep everything until its an adult before they sell it?


So again I agree people shouldn't be cheated. However, just becuase the only programs that are talked about by the chat rooms are simple recessives, and co doms(which is a situational term and often missused) doesn't mean it isn't a project worthy animal.

And just becuase you buy a known morph doesn't mean you'll be rolling in the dough in one year-which is another idea that is ingrained in the bp market.

For example this year my buddy bred a pastel ball to a virgin female ball got 6 eggs and zero pastels. Does this mean his Bell Line pastel is not a pastel-if course not, it means he had bad luck. He should have gotten roughly 50 %,
however percent is based on per hundred not per six.

A friend and I went in on an albino spider adult breeder in the spring of 05 with big plans of becoming rich in 06. We had him cover 3 girls in october of 05 and only one produced and it produced albinos but no albino spiders. So in January of 06 we had him cover 6 girls and had 5 seemingly take. Then one reaborbed so we were left with four big girls. Then we had the third female get stuck, and even though I got the eggs out it was too late and they subsequently went bad. So we were left with three clutches. Well on two of the clutches we only produced a bunch of spider het albinos, so it all came down to the last clutch and we got two albino spiders and 2 spiders het albino. So out of 6 females we really only ended up with one clutch that contained albino spiders. And since we need to keep 2 for other projects we don't have any that we are anxious to sell. So our big plan to pocket 20g's this year really ended up bringing in 3-4 grand and providing the breedstock we need.

Point of the story just becuase you have a 1/2 chance or 1/4, or even 1/16th chance of something in a clutch on a "known" morph doesn't mean you'll get it on the first, second, or even a third try.

Known morphs are easier to sell then unknowns. But think of where the ball market would be if the original guys in 92-93 had given up on the original piebald bps, or if Kevin McCurly had turned down one of the original spiders assuming it was just a reduced pattern, or if Amir had never picked the original yellowbellies becuase they were just pretty normals?



Thanks
ben

I looked around on his website shortly after I got my first BP back in 2004, so I know he's been around for awhile -- and I know for certain he was at Daytona at least once within the past 3 years because on one of the usual after-show pic threads, there were pics and posts about him and the animals he had. There are actually quite a few animals I like on his site and would love to buy them, but the exchange rate and shipping/CITES costs make it too expensive for me.

He was at Daytona this year, too. He had some cool looking stuff...mostly out of my price range, but it was still fun to look. I'm pretty sure he had the animals in question there, too, but I'm not 100% sure.

Shelly