I have several snakes but one of my girls is really puzzling me!
She’s a Russo x Mystic BEL, born in August 21’.
When I first bought her in July 22’, she had a couple of dark freckles on her body. I thought nothing of it, they’ll come off with her next shed, etc. However every shed since, they’ve been exploding in number. It almost looks like she has mites (I assure you, these are pigment!)
Has anybody else experienced this in their BEL snake? If so, could you perhaps share some photos?
Her mum apparently has one freckle, but nothing like the multiplying specks my snake is getting.
Thanks guys!
//Kayleigh
Hi Kayleigh! Others will come along with answers as I am not qualified to even guess! Lol! But I can welcome you to the family! Stick around because help is on the way!
Evening and welcome! While I can’t give you an answer as to why some melanin shows through as freckles on BELs, I can tell you I have also seen it on my Phantom x Mocha as he has gotten older. Not the best photos to show the freckles, but they are what I had on hand (no pun intended).
It is just the nature of the mutation(s). The BluEL genes impact pigment deposition/distribution. Depending on how “strong” or “weak” the mutation is, the pigments can sometimes be erratically deposited in areas resulting in the freckle marks you see
Oh interesting! Thank you for the information!
Do you know if some morphs in the BEL complex are more prone to freckling than the others?
Do you perhaps have any other picture examples?
Thank you!!
I tends to skew toward combinations of the “weaker” alleles - Special, Mystic/Phantom, Mojave, Mocha, etc. Those are the ones where the pathway is “less broken” so more likely to allow for weird pigmentation flukes. Same reason they produce homozygous forms that are more heavily pigmented
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