Unfortunately they can, and some do, but I’d say the majority do not. I’ve actually used the sold listings to trace some snakes I’ve adopted back to their original breeders, so it’s a useful tool for many applications, not just making sure a seller is on the up-and-up.
Thankfully tests are being worked on, and hopefully soon enough we’ll just be able to send in DNA instead of creating more clutches.
I actually had this happen this weekend while away from home. I apologized, explained I was currently out of town and couldn’t… But immediately snapped a couple of quick photos when I was doing a quick check on everything when I got home last night.
Easy peasy.
Iirc… You aren’t supposed to delete ANY animals except if there was a mistake and you double listed. You’re supposed to archive them. But people will just delete anyway. Though some of the older listings do seem to be lost to the 404 monster of time.
Edit:
Some insight to the 404 may also be mentioned here. I guess it can also maybe pop up if the listing is made private.
There was an instance where I bought a snake on MM and I tried to access the listing. It was gone, and from what I could tell, the breeder no longer existed on MM which I assume they got out of the business. I don’t know what can be done in a situation like that. I didn’t contact MM to ask though, to be fair.
I’ve had this happen as well, the person was getting out of corns and after they sold me the snake, deleted the listing. After checking their account, other corns they’ve sold are still there, so I’m stumped as to why.
Thankfully they were not the original breeder of the animal I purchased. By searching her known genetics, sex, as well as year of hatch, then comparing her head stamp and pattern to the resulting listings, I was able to find the original breeder/listing for her. As a bonus, I found out she had an extra het versus what she was sold as.
As for your breeder, it’s possible if their account was gone that they deleted it or were removed from the marketplace. Not sure if there’s any way to get that info back.
That’s totally different. Not being able to provide pictures right bloody now, but providing them later when time and circumstances allow, is very different from refusing to provide them at all. It’s totally understandable that a seller would have…you know, a life, and might not always be in a position to drop everything to take additional pictures at a moment’s notice. But I’d argue that a good seller would do exactly what you did: explain the situation, and then provide the requested pictures once they’re able to do so.
Oh yeah, but I mean… It’s just so easy. There’s no excuse.
Reasonable people accept reasonable reasons.
I have only had a couple folks who were super insistent that they needed mooorrrre pics right away!!! In one case, I was away from home and wouldn’t be back for a couple days. I sent extra pics I had on my phone, but that wasn’t enough. They said they just couldn’t wait, and bought a different animal from another breeder, which of course is fine. More than fine, in fact.
i think almost every rescue lists animals as pet only, weirdly enough, its possible there was prior complications but idk? I kind of agree that if the animals truly pet only then whats the hets matter, theres no lineage on mutations anymore , its not the early 00s
This depends on the producer. Plenty of us can tell you about generations of our animals’ lineage, documented.
This isn’t necessarily relevant to the owner of an animal who’s going to be a pet. Some folks don’t care, but some just like to know.
It’s not really weird if you think about it. They deal with animals people didn’t want or abandoned. They offer them as pet only to discourage breeding more, especially by people who don’t know what they’re doing. It’s the same with dog & cat rescues, the only difference with reptiles is they can’t be easily sterilized to be sure they can’t breed.
Lineage and data will always matter, it’s better to have it than not, at least in my opinion. To say there’s no lineage on morphs anymore is untrue. A lot of it was lost as sites have gone offline and people have retired or not bothered to keep records, doesn’t mean this should be the norm. There’s still a lot of folks trying to back trace their animals and provide pedigree information on what they produce to combat the lack of records.
This is sort of being disproved by the ball python community.
For example, I tested my newest blue eyed Lucy hatchling for Special because I got surprised with what I thought was Mojave and Special testing as Super Mojave in a half sibling.
She tested negative. But then only tested as a het mojave. Not homo/super.
There are three lines of Special in ball pythons. Turns out they are genetically distinct from each other in shed testing, but almost impossible to ID by eye.
Had the lineage been kept, I would have known that my line was not the Baker line of Special.
Shed testing has proved there’s also 3 genetically different lines of Black Pastel, 2 different lines of YellowBelly and 2 different lines of Ultramel so far.
What I’m saying is my animal failed your ‘a/b test’ for Baker.
Had the lineage of my animal been known, I would have a better chance of knowing if mine is a TCR or NOCO mutation. This isn’t a polygenic trait.
Even the breeder I purchased from just assumed they were Baker because it’s the most common and there was no info on the lineage
And yet you are selling BPs?
Poor husbandry can happen in any species, it’s not specific to BPs. Look at a certain big retic breeder finally getting exposed last year for example. It happens in leopard geckos, corns and more.
Yes the BP market is horribly oversaturated right now, so they will naturally out number the other species in offenders, but to imply it’s only a BP issue is just rude
I’m not a breeder but I’ve been a hobbyist genetics enthusiast for quite a while and you’ve said several things here that are just incorrect.
There is nothing more or less natural about the many less distinct body shape mutations that make up a Volta’s unusual size than, say, the mutation that results in the albino phenotype. You can’t “test for” Volta because Volta is polygenic, not because it’s more natural.
The whole impetus for genetic testing at this point is to catch those single-gene mutations; that’s not a problem with the system, that’s just how it works. The other 99% isn’t being tested.
From what I understand, there actually is a difference between the mutation that causes Baker-line Specials vs. the other lines of Specials. Same with the different Black Pastel lines. It’s 100% not about the line they were bred from, it’s about the mutation on the gene: multiple different gene mutations can cause the same “look” and if you’re just looking at a Special’s phenotype, you are liable to mix them up.
You’ve got it backwards. They’re called the Baker line of Specials not because anyone is concerned with the other, polygenic traits from that line, but because the specific gene that is one of a few specific genes that can cause the pattern phenotype defined as a Special was produced by Tom Baker.
As Armiyana said,
So it does in fact literally mean something; it’s just not the thing you’re talking about. No one’s talking about the other 99% of the DNA; there is a specific individual mutation that is being referred to. Barnhardt’s actual black pastel individuals might have looked different, but that’s not really something anyone’s that concerned with replicating. “The original looked better” is subjective, barring actual health issues. Especially because most “originals” probably weren’t line-bred for attractive traits (particularly because a lot of new traits start out wild-caught imports, I think) – BP breeders are generally just looking for the next big gene, singular.
I do think it’d be neat to see more consciously line-bred polygenic looks in BPs, but I don’t think shed testing would ever really be able to test for that. Too many genes to track, and too arbitrary in what defines the “look”.
That said, conflating breeding for a specific, individual gene with watering down bloodlines seems rather alarmist and mythologizing something that didn’t really exist to the extent that you are implying. DNA doesn’t “weaken with time”. An individual gene will always do what it does. That you liked the look of the originating animal better than you like the look of the gene in another animal down the line is a matter of your own personal taste, not some fundamental destruction of beauty from too much breeding.
Please report this as it’s against TOS to sell WC as CB.
This is just how auctions online are run. There’s a popular cornsnake group that had auctions regularly on YT. You don’t know who chat is. They just have to link a valid Instagram account to reply to about the sale.
The auction is a contract. It’s bad business practice to decide to sell to someone else who happened to offer more AFTER the auction is already done.
It’s also fairly easy to do a search for genes or combos, adjust it to sold animals and then sort by lowest or highest price or oldest or newest and look this data up. People just don’t really want that footwork anymore.
i know MorphMarket will improve this over time, they are already absolutely slaying with the innovation of shipping and you can see updates going out, i noticed the tag bubble color changes etc.
Also wasnt talking about offering the original seller more than what the auction ended up, but the new buyer.
One day we will get some form of tracking /average data and i mostly gave these ideas here off of my head but I think they would work, (they implemented seller stuff which is GREAT and the husbandry stuff which admittedly im just beginning to use this week.) , primarily because in all markets you kind of have to cull the stagnate, one way to do this and eliminate “zombie” listings (id have to imagine theres at least 1000 ball pythons listed currently that probably arent even in peoples inventory anymore and another 6000+ that are way out of price normals.)
You’ve just revealed you have no idea of the MorphMarket rules or how the marketplace works. You cannot list an animal no longer in your possession, period. Is it possible there are some that have been sold? Sure, but it’s likely not a significant amount. On top of that, MorphMarket does not control pricing, nor will they ever. Add to that you’re tiptoeing rather close to suggesting price fixing, which is flat out illegal.
Alrighty then.
Regarding the Volta animals. Over the years I’ve seen several clutches of Voltas from Outback raised to adult size. So far there is no indication that they’re genetically any larger or that they grow faster. We raised a clutch of 8 between three of us a few years ago. They grew slower than average, and none of them have gotten larger than average so far. I’ve seen some large animals that have come from Volta stuff but I don’t believe they are any more inclined to large size than other ball pythons.
I suspect they’re eating more and/or larger prey. Perhaps they’re getting Gambian Pouch Rats instead of ASFs.