If black marks are only excluded from the big middle scale I wouldn't call it a "white belly". Ideally, I look for little or no black on any of the three middle scales (yellow belly and het pied both can come in on the outside scales a little).

There are probably non-genetic causes of full white bellies and there are probably also some that fall into the category of "normal" but are genetic. That is to say there might be some genes that cause white bellies in normal ball pythons but it never gets any more morph like than that so is considered "normal".

I've heard that white belly "normals" might tend to make extra nice pastels when bred into pastel lines but I haven't seen any corroboration of this - just one source.

Even if all white bellies aren't an indication of interesting genes I'm still always on the lookout based on so many morphs having white bellies. I believe all of the following hets have white bellies: pastel, phantom, lesser, mojave, cinnamon, high yellow lemon (Vin Ruso leucistic het), fireball, yellow belly, and 70-80% of het piebalds (the markered ones). I also think that homozygous stripe and clowns have white bellies but I'm not sure if the hets have a tendency to have them (I know at least some hets for those two don't have them). I'm not aware of any tendency for white bellies in het ghosts, albino, or axanthics but as with any of these things I've seen very few animals in person so much of this is based on reliable reports, posted pictures, or only having seen one or two. So, while I doubt all or perhaps even most white bellies are het for something I think enough hets have white bellies that I'm bothering to work with three probably ch females with white bellies just in case. I wouldn't spend a lot extra for one but if you see one in a pile of 30 this April and need more females anyway why not pick that one?

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