So if 1 in 200 wild ball pythons where yellow bellies and they where randomly distributed (a big "if" on the distribution, I don't know how much localized inbreeding takes place) they would only result in 1 in 40,000 random wild pairings being yb X yb and only 1 in 160,000 wild bred ivories. With about 150,000 ball pythons harvested from the wild each year this would only be about 1 Ivory but 750 yellow bellies. So, you see with the fully random extreme there could be a many many more imported yellow bellies than imported ivories.

Perhaps the morphs the other poster was referring to are the as yet unproven dinking project imports that might turn out to be more striking combinations of two less remarkable mutations such as the ebony from yb and granite. For every ivory from a random cross of yb X yb there may be several yb X something even subtler (and more common) that turns out to make a nice combo. It will be interesting to try to figure out the genetic relation of these morphs that seem to make a combination that is more dramatic than the sum of the two parts. For example, pewter sure had me thinking there might be some relation between cinnamon pastel and pastel jungle but with the Sterling pastel and the like last year it appears they likely aren't even on the same chromosome.

[ Hide Replies ]

• Question about WC yellowbellies - pfan151, Fri Mar 3 17:01:19 2006
• RE: Question about WC yellowbellies - tns4life, Sat Mar 4 09:59:38 2006
• Respectfully, that makes no sense! - bpconnection, Sat Mar 4 16:21:06 2006
• I agree... - rwoodyer, Sat Mar 4 17:42:01 2006
• Well i think you misunderstood - tns4life, Sat Mar 4 19:06:45 2006
• RE: Well i think you misunderstood - bpconnection, Sat Mar 4 20:33:51 2006
• Odds etc. - RandyRemington, Sun Mar 5 09:35:27 2006
• RE: Odds etc. - bpconnection, Sun Mar 5 19:45:10 2006
• RE: Odds etc. - RandyRemington, Mon Mar 6 00:30:01 2006