Captive Hatched Harlequins?????????????

Thought maybe a little discussion about captive hatched ball pythons would help to clear the air about some of the names being put on these unproven hatchlings that are in abundance this time of year, heres some Harlequin pictures to look at. these are slowly being proven to be geneticly reproducible as a dominate trait and hopefully very soon will be proven to be co-dom, there are Pastel Harlequins now. this hatching season will see more Harlequins being produced and proven. kinda like Mojaves, Yellow Bellies and countless other morphs....just takes a little while to prove them out. it excites me to work with some of this unproven stuff and the chance of producing something unseen before is very real!

If you have any Harlequins that you would like to show off(Vaughn), please post em up.

This is a female brown head harlequin. the eye stripe sometimes fades away and the head becomes very light. this is a rare snake to find.

One I am trying to save now with the vets.

A male keeper from this year!

What are the traits/identifiers of a harlequin?

Gotta Love the Harly's!!!!

I have a beautiful harlequin female that I don't have pics of. She's on a breeding loan right now. I'll see if I can get some pics and post them!
Love the harlequins!
Melissa

On the flipside to the "how great they are" opinion...

One of the biggest problems with the reptile industry right now comes from the poorly defined or completely undefined patterns or color traits being labeled as morphs. Balls are a species where this is especially problematical because they have a very elastic natural phenotype. Darker, lighter, stripes, blotches, spots... these are all things which can be seen as varying from individual to individual within the species.

Further, there can be varying causes for the differences that are seen in pattern and color. Obviously there are codominant and recessive traits that are fairly easily explained, mapped and predicted but there are also genetic tendencies that aren't as easily reproduced. In the same manner that tall people will often have tall children- pythons with a certain type of blotching will often tend (note the use of soft words- not absolutes) to spit out offspring that have a similar pattern BUT... and this is the very important part- not always and not in a way that is predictable. Individual populations that breed regularly in the wild will also often throw up similar patterns. For this reason, many of what an unscrupulous or underhanded scumbucket dealer would call a morph or a minor morph would far more accurately be called locale specific or a naturally occuring color/pattern phase.

Additionally, especially when incubation conditions are unknown, there are questions about oddballs that are displaying a phenotype for formative reasons. Pigment production is a result of many steps but the two easiest to look at are pigment production cells and pigmen sequestering cells- in a species like a ball, which has no firm and unchanging generic phenotype down to the individual scales- this means that there's an element of chance and luck in the pattern and colors displayed in the individual animals. The conditions they are incubated under can impact the growth and density of those color cells. Certainly not to the same degree over minor changes as with say... leopard geckos, but it is a factor.

Too many importers and middlemen are slapping the lebel of "morph" on any ball with any trait that they feel they can call distinct, generally also jacking up the price as they do so. When a dealer makes blanket statements about the inheritability of some of these traits, they cross a line into misrepresentation. Encouraging these conmen by using their terms really only entranches the negative practices and encourages their continued use.

I'd really, really love to see some of these pushers of phenotipically elastic snakes get into a species where their customer pool knows better. Watch them try to sell a biak chondro as a "bananarama superblotch!!!1!!11!!one!!!eleven!!!1! possible new m0rph! I r sure of it maybee!!1??!!/" and the resulting blacklisting that would, quite rightly, ensue.

Originally Posted by JenHarrison

What are the traits/identifiers of a harlequin?

Sounds like a fair question, I wonder why no answer?

Seamus, are you serious? almost all serious BP people know what their doing with these captive hatched imports, they are grabbing up all the odd balls and trying to prove out a new morph. the ones being bought by the new hobbyists at shows are being bought as pets. all they would have to do is ask questions and they will more than likely get the answers they want. do you think that just because someone is new to the hobby they are stupid, they dont research their purchase before they buy? you need to give the young people some credit, I have found that these younger folks are very knowlegeable and know exactly what they are doing. think about that with an open mind!

Originally Posted by Seamus Haley

On the flipside to the "how great they are" opinion...

One of the biggest problems with the reptile industry right now comes from the poorly defined or completely undefined patterns or color traits being labeled as morphs. Balls are a species where this is especially problematical because they have a very elastic natural phenotype. Darker, lighter, stripes, blotches, spots... these are all things which can be seen as varying from individual to individual within the species.

Further, there can be varying causes for the differences that are seen in pattern and color. Obviously there are codominant and recessive traits that are fairly easily explained, mapped and predicted but there are also genetic tendencies that aren't as easily reproduced. In the same manner that tall people will often have tall children- pythons with a certain type of blotching will often tend (note the use of soft words- not absolutes) to spit out offspring that have a similar pattern BUT... and this is the very important part- not always and not in a way that is predictable. Individual populations that breed regularly in the wild will also often throw up similar patterns. For this reason, many of what an unscrupulous or underhanded scumbucket dealer would call a morph or a minor morph would far more accurately be called locale specific or a naturally occuring color/pattern phase.

Additionally, especially when incubation conditions are unknown, there are questions about oddballs that are displaying a phenotype for formative reasons. Pigment production is a result of many steps but the two easiest to look at are pigment production cells and pigmen sequestering cells- in a species like a ball, which has no firm and unchanging generic phenotype down to the individual scales- this means that there's an element of chance and luck in the pattern and colors displayed in the individual animals. The conditions they are incubated under can impact the growth and density of those color cells. Certainly not to the same degree over minor changes as with say... leopard geckos, but it is a factor.

Too many importers and middlemen are slapping the lebel of "morph" on any ball with any trait that they feel they can call distinct, generally also jacking up the price as they do so. When a dealer makes blanket statements about the inheritability of some of these traits, they cross a line into misrepresentation. Encouraging these conmen by using their terms really only entranches the negative practices and encourages their continued use.

I'd really, really love to see some of these pushers of phenotipically elastic snakes get into a species where their customer pool knows better. Watch them try to sell a biak chondro as a "bananarama superblotch!!!1!!11!!one!!!eleven!!!1! possible new m0rph! I r sure of it maybee!!1??!!/" and the resulting blacklisting that would, quite rightly, ensue.