Questions about hgw ball python

Pythons Ball Pythons
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Hi👋
First of all, sorry for my bad English😅

I wonder about the original Hidden Gene Woma Ball Python.

Kevin said hgw came from woma ball python, is this true?
Because hgw woma ball python is lethal.
So it’s not that kevin had the hgw woma ball python, right?
So, while he brought several woma ball pythons, was there a hgw among them?
I wonder what is true because I heard he brought only one original woma python.

Does anyone know where the original hgw ball python came from?
or original hgw ball python story?

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Kevin/NERD imported two animals that looked similar and he, initially, called both of them “Woma Tiger”. As he started breeding these two different animals he noticed that they behaved a little bit differently from one another. And then he bred both of them to a Lesser and got the SoulSucker from one and the much less interesting LesserWoma from the other. At that point decided that they were different morphs and that the one that made the SoulSucker had some other gene “hidden” inside of it. To differentiate between them he started calling one line Hidden Gene Woma and the other line he just kept as Woma Tiger. Eventually, the “Tiger” was dropped from the name. And eventually the number of people telling him that there was no such thing as a “hidden gene” managed to get through, but at that point it had been called Hidden Gene Woma for so long that the damage was done and the name was permanent.

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Although the name could have perhaps been changed to something more fitting I love the history behind the name. Never would have known that without reading your post. Makes me appreciate the name that much more. I guess because it shows the evolution of the reptile industry and the name makes sure that you never forget that.

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I can’t count the number of times I had to explain there was no hidden gene or there was no granite gene that was somehow attached to the hgw gene. A lot of people think a soul sucker is a 3 gene snake which it is clearly not.

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Even the calculator on here still says there is granite.

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I’ve been wondering for days. Thank you so much for telling me about the hgw ball python.

Does anyone know about the story that the original woma ball Python was found in pet shops?
Stefan Broghammer’s python regius book says it was found in a pet shop.
But I’m a little confused because I heard Kevin/nerd imported “directly” from Africa.

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I believe that “found in a pet shop” is probably a miscommunication. My guess would be that Kevin/NERD told Stefan that Woma came in a shipment from Strictly and Stefan misunderstood that as “found in a pet shop” without knowing the knowing the full history of how imports came in to the US back then.

Back in the beginning days, the primary importer for ball pythons was Strictly Reptiles. Rather than go through all the hoops to get their own permits, Strictly would act as a sort of “proxy” for other people by bringing in one great big shipment under their permit that was really a bunch of shipments for multiple people. And once the shipment was there they would parse them out and send them along to the individuals that got in on the group order

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