!!!SPOILERS BELOW!!!
Number 3 is the only normal. 1, 2, and 4 are het clown.
#1: https://www.morphmarket.com/us/c/reptiles/pythons/ball-pythons/759036
#2: https://www.morphmarket.com/us/c/reptiles/pythons/ball-pythons/700176
#3: https://www.morphmarket.com/us/c/reptiles/pythons/ball-pythons/730450
#4: https://www.morphmarket.com/us/c/reptiles/pythons/ball-pythons/571282
#2 and #4 were my guesses, so I’m close! I had (in my head) ranked them in order of confidence as 2-4-1-3, with 2 & 4 being the only two I would buy if they were listed as “pos. hets”
Went back through some pictures lol here are two het clowns with no other genes I produced I feel they look nothing close to the hets there. Sire was a visual clown.
They do look a little different, but is this also before their first shed? Because they look smushy. Also not great lighting
The things that stand out to me personally in a het clown are brighter more vibrant colors, uniquely shaped white lined alien heads and more blushing in between the alien heads. Also white blobs near the lower sides near the belly. The first one especially looks like what I would expect to see in a het. clown
Also not claiming I could ID with 100% accuracy, because I definitely can’t. I just think that there are indicators
Honestly unsure the picture is like 5 years old so not remembering off hand! I would say more than likely yes.
Clown is Recessive because you need two copies of it to make it (or two hets). this snake is a normal het clown. Really, the only way you’ll know is to breed it to another het clown. I have a normal male het clown and have seen plenty in my day. My het clown is a normal, no changes really in color besides the iridescent look to him and his sides and belly have the specific pattern as well… as het pied has markers as well on the sides and bellies. also, proven clowns have the specific head stamps, and this snake doesn’t have that, which proves that this snake is a normal het clown or het for something else.
We know all of this 
It’s more that a lot of recessive may actually be incdom instead for certain reasons, whilst yes they’re still recessive (need 2 copies) but If you read up you can see why some people think this may be the case.
Also the same with corns etc
If your referring to the two I posted I knew for sure they were hets because the male was a visual clown.
Yes I agree! I was one of the people saying I believe clown is recessive and not incomplete dominant.
This all sounds extremely familiar… but why… oooooooh right… paint… cough, cough…
A LOT of people (and some still do) thought paint is incomplete dom… and ended up selling a lg amount of animals by “markers or traits” that they were seeing that NEVER PROVED OUT.
Very true lol 
While I think that pied and clown are incodom, I still want it to be right. Hopefully, one day we will find out.
This is an extremely good point!
As always, thanks for the incredibly informative analysis Travis!
Sounds like there may be quite a few “recessive” mutations that are more accurately described with the “incomplete penetrance” label. While I’m not sure I fully agree with you regarding codom vs inc. dominance (because of Paul Hollander’s analysis posted elsewhere and his credentials) I think there’s hope that proper terminology could make its way into our hobby. “Inc. Dominant” is fairly widely used today and I imagine your efforts and subsequently MorphMarket’s decision to use that label played quite a role. Maybe one day “incomplete penetrance” will make it’s way into the mix as well, when appropriate. Though it does get confusing and the increase of complexity doesn’t help.
Ironically Pete came to my place of business in the mid 2000’s delivering a high priced boa in person. At the time I was very strict with my specialization in boas only, that’s where my passion was. He suggested I move into ball pythons via pieds. A visual at the time was out of my financial ability so that investment would have been in a het or possible het. While I regret not getting into ball pythons much sooner I’m glad I didn’t put down a small fortune for possible hets!
Been more than a few years since my Gov/Econ class, so please forgive me if I am misremembering the name, but is Hollander not a political economist or a socio-political analyst or something like that? I am just failing to make the connection between him and discussions of genetics (or are we thinking of two totally separate people???)
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I am sure I have played a role, as I said, I have been banging that drum for a long time and I have found a lot of great people that have helped my amplify my voice along the way (John here at MM, the MPR and THP crews, the old BLBC…) But it was a fight for a lot of that time against entrenched ideas and misinformation from big name breeders, and I was young and stupid and happy to throw my middle finger up at the world and dig in my heels and foam at the mouth.
Now I am a tired old fart that does not have the time or energy to go a hundred rounds apiece with all the dozens keyboard commandos across every Facebook group out there 
Paulh was his handle on the forums, I think you guys had that debate on blbc iirc.
Paul was our Travis back when I moderated the genetics section of the redtailboas forum in the 2000’s. I’m pretty sure there’s a video of you guys having a discussion on YouTube but I could be mistaken. It’s also possible I got his last name wrong (been a long time). My lack of fully embracing the codom to inc. dom shift is, admittedly, mostly out of stubbornness and confidence in Paul’s expertise. I spent a decade + being thoroughly impressed by his well educated genetic knowledge, similar to you in recent times.
Aaaaaaahhhh… Yes I remember him. Definitely NOT who I was thinking of. I do not think I ever knew his last name LOL
Yeah, he and I traded rounds on a couple occasions back in the old forum days. The great thing I remember about him was that no matter how many times we went back and forth in our debates there never had any animosity toward one another. That and he seemed to ken that my straight forward, point-by-point talk was just how my braing worked and not reductive nit-picking
I am still learning everything so bear with me. The way I understand things are a recessive isn’t visual unless both parents give the recessive gene to the baby. (Albino, Pied Clowns) If they are a carrier of that gene, they are het or not a visual but carrier of the gene. An example would be a Normal Het Clown is non-visual and not the super form. While a visual clown is the super form of the het clown. Now from what I gather, the het markers are not consistent and not reliable. So I personally think no they are not incomplete dominant traits just because some animals have “Markers” I have red tinted hair in the underneath but I am not a red head, I possibly carry (my husband does not have any red neither does his brothers or mother ) the gene but not expressing it. I also think when it comes to genetics it is over simplified in the reptile community too. It would take an actual geneticist to know for sure whats going on
I think this is a good lesson to learn from, because while deep down I do think clown and pied may be incomplete dominant, changing the labels could make things incredibly messy for everyone. There’s no shortage of incorrectly labeled morphs as it is, and plenty of people still trying to figure out recessive vs inc. dom vs dominant. As much as I’d like “ball python genetics” to catch up to real world genetics, I’d like to not buy mislabeled snakes more. Since the phenotypes seen in het pieds and het clowns is subtle enough that it provokes this debate, keeping them labeled as recessives for now seems a safer bet
Thankfully we have not one but two! Both Hilary and Travis are legit geneticist!
Alright, so I’m really big on recessive morphs are recessive (and therefore will never show a difference as hets) and inc-dom are inc-dom. I always believed that clown and pied were recessive because I was never able to see an obvious difference as hets. Then I was told that monsoon should be considered inc-dom. When I looked at the hets, I could instantly see a huge difference. Then I was introduced to the “is pied inc-dom” thread and noticed a difference too. Not as much as monsoon, but still a difference. I mostly saw that difference in cinny/bp and leopard especially. I wondered if there were other “recessives” that are the same, but didn’t really notice much.
I scroll through Instagram and morphmarket a lot so I see a lot of ball pythons. Scrolling through Instagram, my brain would scream “clown” at me more and more often. Every single time that would happen, the animal in the photo would be het clown. It happened so consistently it made me think about clown being inc-dom too. I couldn’t figure out what I saw that made them different at first, but I think the two main phenotypes I see are:
I do also tend to notice it more in combos vs “normals”. I’m sure there’s more little things I’ve yet to pick up, but that’s what I’ve noticed so far.
I’d also like to point out yellow belly. There are plenty of people who cannot ID them for the life of them, no matter how much they try. And there are others who can ID ones that even experienced people have trouble with. The Ball Python Genetics Project even discovered that yellow belly actually has two different mutations, not just one. One that is “full” disruption of the gene and one that is “partial” disruption (source in the comments). I think this explains how we have some lines of yellowbellies that are so incredibly subtle. Yet we still consider yellow belly inc-dom because some people are able to identify them, even if sometimes they have to be labeled as “pos”.
Just because most people can’t (or haven’t learned) how to ID a specific morph, doesn’t mean it should be labeled as recessive. The story with Pete and het pieds should be a huge indicator of that. All of the “het-marker” stuff has also made classifying morphs especially difficult because some people legitimately don’t know what recessive genes are (and simple dominant but that’s for another time). I think we need to do better as a community to make sure new morphs are labeled correctly. I have seen some new recessives that should absolutely be considered inc-dom (monsoon and zebra come to mind).
I agree it could be confusing, but if we were to reclassify clown (or any “recessive”), we don’t have to change the naming system for it. Just look at het red axanthic. It was thought to be recessive at first but now we know it’s inc-dom. There also palmetto in corns. It’s now accepted (but not widely known) that it’s inc-dom but hets are still called hets. It does still make it confusing for some people, but being labeled as hets isn’t wrong. Heterozygous doesn’t inherently mean it’s recessive. The reptile community just uses that term almost exclusively for recessives.
