Species
Ball Python
Name of Gene
Rust
First produced by
Patrick MacKnight / Aura Reptiles
Year first produced
2022
Inheritence type
Recessive
In complex with other genes?
Ultramel
History
Rust first appeared when I paired a male carrying Blackhead and Pied to an Ultramel female while attempting to produce double hets. When the clutch hatched, we noticed several unusually dark animals with a subtle Ultramel tone. After consulting with multiple breeders to confirm that we weren’t simply seeing an unusual Ultramel combo, it became clear that we were looking at something different.
I repeated the same pairing the following year and also bred that same male to an unrelated Ultramel female in our collection. Both pairings produced the same unusual offspring, leading us to believe a new gene was present. The following year, we bred one of the original het Rust / het Ultramel males to multiple Ultramel females. All offspring were either visual Ultramels or the distinct dark animals, which were double het for Rust and Ultramel.
Once we established that Rust was allelic with Ultramel, we developed a genetic test and confirmed that the mutation is indeed within the same gene as Ultramel. At this point, we have done many pairings and can state with 100% confidence that Rust is not Ultramel, not Monarch, and is allelic with Ultramel.
