So I have a snake that is a normal. However he has three keyholes in one of his alien heads. My question is, is there any morphs or genetics connected to a snake having three keyholes in one alien head.
There are a few genes that can alter pattern in alien heads, but also very important to remember that normal/classic/wild type ball pythons are incredibly variable. He looks like a wild type to me, and I’ve seen many a classic/wild type with cool or “abnormal” markings. They’re so much more variable than folks often think.
Edit: forgot to add that hets can also influence pattern (elongated alien heads are especially seen in heterozygous tri-stripe animals) but until you know for a fact he came from a parent carrying the gene or he proves out through breeding to carry it, he’s a normal. He looks like a very standard normal ball python to me.
Without seeing more photos of the whole animal, there’s not likely to be a good answer.
Honestly though? Probably just normal.
Where did you get this noodle? A big box pet store mostly just gets normals. Sure, they may have an undisclosed het or a poor expression pastel turn up from time to time… But unlikely to be anything exciting. A rando on craigslist with no history is even less likely to be anything.
Anything that may mess with pattern disruption like that will typically repeat. Not just have one random spot that’s different… Unless you’re looking at a het pied or champagne ringer, which this is obviously not the case
We all hope to see something that could be new and exciting. But remember that those odds are very low, take a lot of work to prove out… And makes us forget just what is beautiful about these animals and brought them to the hobby in the first place.
Agree with everyone here, if you would like to look at some morphs that do commonly express this type of irregular alien head pattern, it will be things like trick, blitz and some of the other genetic “granite” type of morphs.
I had 3 eyes (or keyholes) in a one of my normals and one het albino.
I have had a normal with 3 eyes:-
And a het Albino with 3 eyes:-
That’s 2 out of the 4 no morph snakes I have had with 3 eyes, so I guess it just happens sometimes.
I have even see 4 keyholes/eyes here -
Its the first link