Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can anyone tell me what makes a morph a morph? For example I know that Albino is yellow and white with red eyes. What makes a pastel a pastel and so on. I only ask because I have seen people advertising a lemon pastel that hardly looks like a regular pastel. Any information on other morphs not listed will be very helpful too. Thank you in advance.

Hi there,
Morphs are mutations within a species. The animals are the same, but certain characteristics have changed, ie; color, pattern, etc., and combinations of both, or other factors. Some mutations make these snakes look entirely different from their respective foundation, but they are all the same. Pastels have an intense yellow and black color, and fade in some areas of the body. If two identical Pastel morphs were to breed, their mutant gene can and would produce a "SUPER" form, which is stunning. It is the "SUPER PASTEL". There are many variations in the ball python gene, and that is what our hobby has focused on, the varieties. If you would like to see and learn more about some identifying markers for genetic mutations of ball pythons look at HUNTERS GUIDE. It is not the tell all of morphs, but it is an excellent place to start. There are too many morphs out there to explain. I think it is what morhs we combine with each other to create snakes of color and pattern of our choice which will be interesting in the future. But we all have to start somewhere!
I hope I helped.

The New Ball Python book by Kevin at NERD gives a pretty good list of most all of the current morphs out there. A morph is an abnormal gene causing a difference in appearance from the normal coloration, pattern, scalation, etc. of the Ball Python.
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Mike and David at 3-D Pythons
www.3dpythons.com

I was asking that question because I bought a pastel and he is very pretty but has a bit more brown then some of the ones I saw. He does have a lot of blushing though. I was giving an awsome albino het male. I also bought a female that I am told is a ringer but I do not know what to look for to know if she really is or not. She is also very pretty. As far as I know all the others are normals. Two of them have really light colors.

Then that book would be a great start it has over a hundred different morphs and combinations with pictures and descriptions of you get them, etc. He also covers how the genes actually work to produce morphs...we have that on our site to on the information page as do others. best of luck and enjoy those snakes sounds like you got some nice ones.
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Mike and David at 3-D Pythons
www.3dpythons.com