Hey ya’ll, I know we’re fairly new here but i was hoping to enlist some help on this…
So alittle about us; my husband and I have recently begun the process of starting up a Reptile Rescue Mission in our local area of VA. “Houston’s Reptile Rescue” As it has caught our attention that we are seeing an abundance
of reptiles being posted up for “free” or “rehoming” post pandemic as people got them during the lockdown and have since gotten too busy or lost interest In them, and some have been neglected and left in terrible condition. Us being avid animal lovers of all shapes and sizes, felt the need to do something, since we started a few months ago we have taken on 4 new rescues, included jn those is this beautiful ball python brought to us for rescue yesterday. And we look forward to the challange of getting her back to her best self.
So far what we know about her, She is absolutely beautiful! When i asked her morph the information that they gave was a “Crystal Pewter”. Which i am having a hard time confirming as there isnt alot of reference material on “crystal pewter”. She is supposedly a 5 year old female; But if that is to be true she is severly underweight by just visual observation, and appears to have old shed still lingering all over her. Both the digital thermostat and humidity guages were included with her husbandary however both batteries were dead in devices and the previous owner said they werent sure the last time they rememberd them working. So needless to say, she’s on the up & up, we have cleaned and sanitized her terrarium, we have given her a good soak or 2 and we’re going to get some food in her belly tonight if all goes well. Her husbandary conditions are back under control and being closely monitored. Now I just need help properly identifying the morph of this sweet baby…is she actually a “crystal pewter” or is sh3 something else???
Awwww poor baby. Super pretty, should get a bit brighter once she’s less stressed and settled in. She’s not super skinny, I’ve seen worse @_@; She is a bit on the small side for a 5 year old imo so she was probably fed meals that weren’t a good size for her or possibly kept too cool to properly absorb all the nutrients from her meals. I’d maybe start her out on small meals for the moment for her next meal or two before moving her up to the correct size. Generally that’s considered just about the same size around as she is in the thickest part of her body or 10% of her body weight.
I say start smaller though because if she’s not used to the right size meals she might regurge which can stress her out more or worse. Take it slow and she should start filling out in no time.
Crystal is an allelic combo of two genes, Mojave and Special. She’s definetly a crystal.
Pewter is a ball python carrying the pastel and either black pastel or cinnamon gene.
I definetly see Pastel crystal. Just not 100% on the blk pastel or cinny part.
Thanks so much for the information . I definitely came acrossed a pastel crystal i could compare her to . But without seeing her parents pairing or the rest of her clutch she cane from its hard to know for certain. But were working up to getting her back to weight we are on the same page with the smaller meals and gradually increasing in size 
i cany wait to see her fill out
Agree with this assessment. I can absolutely see this as being a Crystal Pastel but nothing about this animal makes be believe it carries the BlkPastel or Cinny morph
@armiyana @t_h_wyman I do notice a very faint pop of grayish color and some warm tan colors that appear around her head as well as around some of her markings as almost outlining…i did my best to get pictures .what do u think could be from? Could that be aspects of cinni or blk pastel?
The cinny or blk pastel should be affecting the pattern more as far as I think…
The genes interact heavily with BEL genes.
Here’s a picture of my male, a pastel quartz (pastel enchi Mojave special). They can have some darker patterning around the head.
The second is my blk pastel lesser. Mojave has a similar way of chaining pattern along the sides, your crystal would have a similar chaining and not the more open pattern if they did.
Edit: also! It looks like your baby has some stuck shed and retained eyecaps from those new photos? I would definitely try to (very carefully!!) Try and fix that. If she sheds again and retains eyecaps again it can lead to issues. I’d double check the humidity too just in case! I’m assuming you’re already on top of it but just in case another set of eyes here!
Thank you for the educational info and thought out explination! We appreciate the pictures to go with the info as well. Im learning something new everyday. With a rescue baby its hard to know whatyour getting into or what youve got when you werent given much information to go off of.
Lol. Shes beautiful and so is her temperament i cant believe someone was so quick to disguard her. But we are happy to take her on, that being said she is still in shed and weve only had her 2/3 days so far. So weve got her new set up together for her and have given her a good soak hope to have the rest of that off by tomorrow, but a second set of eyes is always appreciated.
NP! Morphs can be tricky and without the right info almost impossible sometimes. Luckily, crystal does tend to stand out on it’s own pretty well!
With crystals they can be a little tough to tell additional genes when younger. Sometimes they hatch out really light and gain color, sometimes they already start out bright and can fade. I have one that started out looking just like the white super Mojave sibling…and now is a pale shade of yellow when you compare the two.
There’s a few cinnamon crystals on the sold listings in the marketplace if you want to see what I mean by the chaining and pattern difference. Just adjust the search options.
The thing that I also know is sometimes people see what they want. Or not understanding genetics take everything into account. Perhaps in this case, one of the parents was a Mojave pewter so they just added pewter as well. As a rescue it will help to know what you’re dealing with so if anything does seem off, it’s always good to check!
Heck, I rescued an actual ragdoll off the streets once, cleaned him up and got in touch with a rescue. They couldn’t believe it when they saw him in person. The average person will say something like, “I have a main coon!” Because they have a large and most often for me to see, obese cat…or a Siamese because it has seal points. Reptiles are no different. I rescued a leopard gecko in an odd state and the owner said it was albino because it was pink. It was actually the color or the reptile sand dying her skin pink…a normal Leo with high patterning. Lol
Fully agree here. It would also dampen the level of gold you are seeing
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This is not retained eye cap, it is a hydration/humidity issue. Provide a large bowl of clean water for the animal and see about bumping the humidity up in the enclosure