Hey everyone!
I didn’t know where to ask, so I figured this community is the right one to go to!
My first snake, Jasper, is an adoption from the local reptile shelter. I don’t ever plan on breeding him; I’m just curious for my own sake. What would you call his color (and maybe his morph)? I know it’s impossible to know 100% without knowing his genetics, but maybe some trained eyes can give me a good guesstimate about what this adorable mutt of mine may be.
He’s still young, maybe only 2-3 years old. I’ve owned him for a year. I’m still a little new to the snake morph vocabulary…
Ooh, very nice! Can I get some pictures in natural light to see how yellow he really is? He’s definitely sunkissed at the very least, but I think he’s probably a colorful sunkissed anery. However, if his yellow is more yellow than it looks from some of the pictures, he may be a honey.
What a handsome fellow! I see Sunkissed too, with the size and regularity of his saddles. Yes to likely Anery as well in these photos. Lighting can alter the way coloration appears. There may be Caramel in there. In any case, he’s beautiful. Oh, and welcome!
Thank you both!
I managed to get some more pictures with natural sunlight (coming from a window right next to me). He starts out pretty yellow at his head but fades into a peach color about a 4th of the way down. Hopefully you can see it in the photo, he was a little curled around my hand at the moment. I think I woke him up from a nap. XD
Edit: Wow. All this time I didn’t notice he had this yellow gradient right near his belly! That’s really cool! You can kind of see it in the first and second photo. He wasn’t holding still long enough for me to get a good picture of that.
I think I’m going to go with exceptionally bright sunkissed anery. I’ve seen some Miami-line honeys that are very similarly colored, but I think only one breeder is producing them, so it’s not super likely that one would be surrendered to an adoption facility. Plus your guy starts to lose his yellow towards the tail end and honeys typically have yellow all the way down to the end.
I’m going to stick with Sunkissed Anery also, which is a beautiful combination. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I’m also maybe seeing a possible addiition of Ultra because of the degree and quality of ombre yellow gradient from head to tail. Sunkissed Aneries aren’t the rarest morph, but neither are they the most common. I admit that I haven’t seen a Sunkissed Ultra Anery, but if I did, I’d expect it to look a lot like Jasper.
Whatever he is, he is very lovely and he appears to be a perfect gentleman, too. Congrats to you both!
I was having a similar thought - maybe sunkissed ghost because he does appear lighter than a typical sunkissed anery. But ultra could be a possibility too. It gets challenging with hypo types!
Thank you both! I was looking up both of those on google images (the Sunkissed Anery and the Sunkissed Ghost) and they both look really really similar to my boy. The ghost does look more like him, but as you guys said, it’s hard to tell sometimes!
I appreciate the input a lot. I want to make a little custom card for his cage so I’ll spend some time deciding which one I wanna put as his possible morph.
Why not both? You could do that with a “or” between them. Or use “possible” or "likely " before whichever you feel suits him best. Or even a question mark afterward. Not that you need to do any of those, of course. I personally insert a question mark or a “likely” in my records when I’m uncertain if an animal has a trait but that’s just me. There’s no shame in being unsure.
It’s also a visual nudge when pondering breeding plans (which I spend a lot of time doing). If that makes me sound like I’m breeding total mystery animals, I’m not. There are some traits which may not always be visible in a hatchling but appear later, such as Red Factor. There are also trait combos like Jasper’s potential double hypo-type genes, or Diffusion and Stripe which can be tough to distinguish if both are present and parents’ traits aren’t completely certain. I have “Diffusion?” on a Stripe baby who was bought from a large breeder who doesn’t list hets. When she’s breeding age I’ll find out for sure.
That may be TMI, sorry. Lengthy explanations at times are a throwback to my days in the classroom, lol. In any case, Jasper is a really handsome fellow!
