Nature select breeds all the time. The only real difference is the hobbyist/breeder is looking for more aesthetic appearance than what nature normally does. Even then, it is often the most brilliant patterened, coloured, biggest rack, etc that gets the girl in the wild. Look at most species of birds, many spend alot of time and energy showing off their feathers to get their dull colored females to choose them as their mates.



Some of these brightly colored animals in the wild risk their own safely as they lack the camoflage of their females. I am sure a bright flashing panther chameleon stands out well against the greens and browns of the jungle for a natural predator to get him, while he is all dressed up for love. Many male animals go to great efforts to prove they are the biggest and the best to father offspring, even to the point of killing themselves and not necessarily due to competition with other males. I am sure many male birds and other animals get pegged by a predator while they are busy puffing, strutting, crooning and flaring bright colors to impress the females.



The only time the hobbyist/breeder risks the overall health of the animal is if he inbreeds too much to isolate desired recessive traits which result in an unhealthy animal due to harmful recessive traits. Most respectable breeders will out cross new animals to freshen the gene pool. Alot of the bright colored morphs of ball pythons wouldn't survive in the wild as they do rely on camoflage to stalk their prey but then again, I don't think any captive bred animal will survive in the wild, even if it looks identical to their wild brothers.



What I am more against is wild caught animals. There should be plenty of normal ball pythons hatched in captivity that could be sold instead of wild caught, at reasonable prices. I would rather spend 20-50% more on a guarenteed captured bred ball python that is eating well on frozen thawed mice/rats than a wild caught ball that may or may not eat frozen thawed or even live mice/rats and could have all kinds of mites, internal parasites, and other health issues.

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