My guess is that the breeder meant that the snake does not have any presently identified mutant genes affecting its appearance. With emphasis on the words "presently identified".

Individual differences in prenatal environment as well as the genes produce a range of appearance in ball pythons. Your snake may have individual differences that move it closer to the yellow end of the range. It would be helpful to compare it with its parents and clutch mates to see how similar or different they are.

Then again, you might have something new. But the only way to tell is to mate your snake to a more average colored normal and see whether the appearance reappears in the first or second generations.

Paul Hollander

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