Hello everyone, this is the baby picture of my ball python boy Sinniistea( https://www.morphmarket.com/us/c/reptiles/pythons/ball-pythons/870229). He was listed as only being a Mojave Vanilla with a double 50% het for both hypo and orange ghost. I bought him from his breeder back in ‘22 so he’s 4 years old now(and he’s an amazing boy but he’s not a fan of cameras so his baby pic is the best one I have of him). Based on his baby picture could anyone please tell me if he has cinnamon or pastel? His sire had Mojave, Pastel, Vanilla, Cinnamon, and Banana/Coral Glow(the ad shows his sire and dam).
Thanks for any help that can be provided. Also what would be some good tips/tricks to tell the difference between Vanilla, Pastel, and Fire please because I get caught up on those.
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He looks to be just vanilla or fire Mojave to me from the baby photo.
Vanilla and fire are very difficult to tell apart. You would have to shed test them or breed them to another fire complex animal to be 100% certain.
Super vanilla, vanilla cream and super fire all look different for example.
If one parent was het for hypo and the other was het for Orange Ghost, your male is 66% hypo.
Orange Ghost is a line bred from Hypo, so since you can’t be sure if he inherited the gene from the Orange Ghost parent, it’s best to just say hypo. You can’t be sure this snake inherited the polygenic genes that make the Orange Ghost.
Pastels will give mojaves lighter and more green colored eyes. The head will be more blushed out than with a fire or vanilla.
Here’s two of my own.
A vanilla Mojave het DG, 66% orange ghost (both parents were het Orange Ghost line)
And the same snake with a Mojave het hypo.
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Thank you very much. My boy does have more green to his eyes and at his current age he has lightened up a decent amount. I’ll see if I can get him to cooperate long enough for a few pics to post what he looks like currently it may take me a few days though to update with those pics however as I’m a bit busy the next few days.
His mom is the parent with the Hypo(and according to the trait list on MM Hypo and Orange Ghost are two separate but similar traits that aren’t genetically compatible with each other which is why they are listed separately at least that’s my understanding).
Edited to ad that neither parent carries the fire gene, I just can’t tell a difference at all between pastel, fire, and vanilla because they look so close to each other visually.
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All Orange Ghosts are hypos but not all hypos are orange ghost
Orange Ghost and Hypo are genetically compatible. RGI has found that through their testing. OG was line bred to add extra pop from polygenic genes. Like tangerine is bred in leopard geckos.
If the mom was OG, they most likely added Hypo because not everyone searches for Orange Ghost. I do the same on my listings and have the parents listed as:
Mojave Hypo (Orange Ghost line)
Super Vanilla pastel Desert Ghost het Hypo (Orange Ghost line)
There’s a lot of problems in Ball Pythons where different names are given to the same gene depending on the line. Hypo especially is a doozy. There’s a couple other lines but I only can remember 4 at the moment
Hypo, Ghost and Orange Ghost are all the same morph.
Green Ghost I haven’t worked with and there’s varying reports of some being compatible to hypo and others saying it isn’t.
Desert Ghost and Enhancer are both the same morph, just different lines. Not compatible with Hypo.
Desert is a different and problematic gene that has nothing to do with Desert Ghost
True Ghost is a double visual combination of Axanthic and Hypo
It’s a lot to keep track of. Lol.
It’s great that you’re looking to learn more about the genes.
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Thank you so much for the clarification, I’ll be sure to update my notes accordingly(once I can locate my notebook, have to unpack it again).
So the extra pop you mentioned is it an addition to brightness/boldness of the hypo trait or is it more subtle than I’m thinking? I know hypo kinda makes them more deluded color wise kind of like doing a white wash over a painting.
I’m doing by best to learn more/update my knowledge as the last bit of hard core research I did on genes is a few years out of date and with me planning to get another ball python hopefully this year, I wanted to hopefully get one that would either be compatible with him in the future or that would produce offspring that would be compatible so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get help from others on making sure his genes were identified accurately and that I could get a few clarifications on genes that I get tripped up on(ex: fire vs vanilla vs pastel). I like to make sure that I’m well educated/knowledgable as possible especially when it comes to the animals I choose as companions.
Would you happen to have any recommendations on things I should read(ideally with visual examples as having visuals help me a lot in my learning)? Are there any other tells for determining a difference between similar genes that you can think of that would be important for my notes? Really any help and/or additional resources I can lean from would be greatly appreciated especially if it will help me with being able to better identify different genes on my own.
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