What’s up with the insane variations possible with Ball Pythons? Are they more genetically diverse or is it simply the product of the herp industry’s fascination with them and thus more breeders creating more possibilities?
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The latter, which creates the former.
But for me the latest morphs are often not as good as a basic one, like albino or bell.
Many morphs lust look like normals mostly, unless in some cases when they are mixed with other morphs.
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So it’s a mixture of a few things. Ball pythons in particular have been seen as a pest repellant in a large parts of the world and have been allowed to thrive in nature and have managed to establish themselves in a variety of locations. Big enough to kill rodents but not big enough to pick off your dog or children. Add to that that the want for them in the pet trait was, even in he 80s, enough to warrant catchers
More wild animals gives off more chances of mutation.
More localities gives off the chance for more mutations.
More catchers to spot these mutations before predators.
Something else to note is that a lot of the imported morphs actually prove out to be multiple traits. These get bred out into new localities (which nobody keeps track of in Balls) and collections and 5 generations later someone will isolate a certain one and believe they are the founder.
Meanwhile, someone on the other side of the country also purchased a snake from somewhere in that 5 generation gap and proves out the same gene… boom, we have a HRA, Green Pastel, Lace Black Back, Lori situation on our hands.
I personally believe that we could cut the current count of published morphpedia articles down from 160 to well below 100.
Look at matts list here, this is just a small chunk of what there is to learn
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Yeah, likely a lot of overlap or morphs that don’t aesthetically differentiate from others unless one has a well-trained eye for it.
Thanks for the info and posting the link! That’s a great resource!
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