There are two alternative hypotheses. The first is long-term sperm storage. We know that ball pythons and bloods can often store viable sperm over several seasons (one reason to be careful if you breed a female yearly to recessive lines and sell the offspring as a given het recessive, as they may actually be one from a previous year). The alternative hypothesis would be facultative parthenogenesis, again something we know that many snakes are capable of. In the latter case the offspring will be female. The only way to differentiate between the two would be genetic screening using variable nuclear DNA markers.

Warren
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Dr. Warren Booth

USARK - Director

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