New ball pythons morphs/mutations

No. Albinos were the first proven mutation. It really isn't weird. The main guy for pieds has always been Pete Kahl. Until recently Pete only worked with pieds. So while other people were doing other things Pete just kept producing pieds. Also, most people are naturally greedy and instead of planning a long term breeding project and investing in pieds, most newcomers to the ball world the past few years have focused 99.9% of their monies and attentions on buying and breeding animals with dominant genes to try to make a quick buck. Because of that caramels, pieds, clowns, etc., remain scarce while the market floods with spiders, pastels and mojaves.

This year will see huge production of pinstripes and cinnamons. It is just quicker and easier. And because of that the recessive morphs have taken a back seat to them with the exception of the people who understand long term investing and know that the recessive genes will hold their value much longer and be a great thing to have when they re-discovered. It has happened with albinos, hypos, axanthics and others. They are out of the limelight for a while prices go down, then somebody realizes what they can potentialy do when bred to something else and demand and price increase and you can't find them because it is not a dominant gene and is more complicated to produce. Go look for females hypos now. You will really be hard pressed to find any. If you do, they will be expensive. On the other hand, there are mojaves and spiders all over the place, many large enough to breed, that are not selling.

Another thing to keep in mind, the past couple years were the first that pieds have been reasonably inexpensive in comparison to other traits. Not too many people were buying them when they were $20,000-30,000 each, mainly because all there was back then to do with them was breed them to produce more pieds. If you bought a male pied and het female (or the opposite) for huge money, you were not going to breed the pied with an albino. You were going to produce pieds to help recover your investment. Now they are more desirable because their potential is limitless.

Another one I thought of, Will Slough produced those killer banana balls and they were all het clown. Due to how reduced the pattern of the banana is and how bright the color is it may really hide the pattern mutation of the clown but it is another possible for this year.

if i had the money to do it then i would like to see a axanthic and a spider. IMHO the future in ball python morphs is in the axanthic. they are right behind the pied in my favorite morphs and i would like to see more of them. now that i think about it i might try and save up my money and get one and see what i can do with it but that might take awhile cuz i am only 15 if any1 would like to donate one to me i would take it, haha j/k but i relly do want one so where can i get one???? thanks

The problem the axanthic has is simple, they look like crap when they grow up. Bright blue to purple as babies, while most adults look normal (and ugly) and so many normals look like they are axanthic. It has really kept the mutation out of many collections (including my own). They make snows, but who really cares that much about snows anymore now that we have leucistics? They are white, like people wished the snows would be and they have awesome eyes (blue more so than black, but both look good from here). If somebody could just take a few years to refine the gene and try to get a better and better end product it would be great. I really think the true ghost (axanthic hypo) will be a good looking animal and if it is it will drive the axanthic gene the same way the pastel ghost drove the hypos back.

I would like to see a coral glow/pinstripe.

hey evan did you ever find out if the 2 tone female on ur site is genetic or not? have you even bred her to a normal? if you have i might want one of the babies.

Evan,

Although I "have done my homework" about the genetic inheritance of ball python morphs I still have the suspicion that the pied is something different. Yes, it has been proven to be recessive no doubt about it, and I sincerely hope they can build it into other morphs. They would be stunning. But there is something about them that is casting a doubt, and where the Mendelian laws might play us a trick. One example of something that we haven't been able to figure out yet is the inheritance of the ringers, and they have been around even longer than the pieds. As I said before I might be proven wrong in the future (and that's why there's albino and pied blood in my collection!).

Regards.

Hey Dan, the ringer is nothing to figure out. It is just a random pattern/color abherancy like a non genetic stripe or non genetic banded animal, it is just a flaw of pigmentation that is non reproducable from line breeding. Humans have brith marks/moles. It is the same. Ringers have been produced from pied, albino, normal and other bloodlines. When bred to each other they produce nothing, at least so far, but not much hope really. I think what you are really talking about is the possibilty that the structure of the genetic make-up of the pied gene would in some way affect the allele in the DNA so that another pattern mutation would not be able to function??? It could happen, although I would tell you that it has been proven to not be a factor in other cases and I strongly believe it will not be here, BUT even if it were, it still would not prevent you from producing albino, hypo or axanthic pieds as that is a color mutation while pied is a pattern mutation. Now how about a really good quality axanthic pied? It would be black and white. At this point Dan we are all just theorizing but I will never say you are wrong until it happens. I will say that I think you are probably not right (pretty good for me really). I do think we will find out this seaons when the baby spider pieds pop and the long shot pied albinos happen at RDR's magic ball laboratory.

The two tone has been bred this year for the first time. I bred her with a couple males. A hypo and a pastel. This way if she proves to not be dominant (which would be an unlikely outcome in my opinion anyhow) I am not raising babies of no potential to breed back. If she produces, if they hatch and if I raise them up and breed them back because they came out without looking "two tone" at least they are pastels or het hypos that I would raise for future breeding anyway. That assures me that even if the two tone project dead ends in failure in a few years I did not watse the effort of raising normals.

Excellent post Evan! You described very well what might be a possible scenario. One way or the other I honestly hope I'm wrong, and wish Ralph in that breeding. As far as the "ringers" go, I strongly believe they are genetic and not random. The only problem is we haven't been able to figure out yet. If they were just molts they shouldn't show 90% in the same area, and with a similar distribution. Ringers appear even in clutches from normal animals bred to each other. To my knowledge no other reptile shows this with this
unusual frequency.

Regards.

is there any websites or books that go indepth on ball python morphs, im really intrensted in the types of Axanthic

I would start by checking NERD's webpage and ballpython.com. They both describe most of the current morphs.

Regards.