Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Why is it that every other snake on the classifieds seems to be being sold as a yellow belly? If there were actually that many yellow bellies in the wild wouldn't there be alot more WC ivories for sale? How many of these WC's do you think will prove out? I have a het pied that I think could be a yellow belly when compared to some of these WC's for sale. He actually has all the markers from the hunters guide(I will post a pick of him next week to get your guys opinion). This is not directed at any particual dealers ad, I am just looking for some opinions.
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1.2 Het Pied
1.1 Het Lavender Albino
1.1 Het Albino
0.7 Normals
1.0 66% Het lav albino
1.0 50% Het lav albino
0.0.2 1999 Hatchling Galapagos Torts

Well, there is more yellow bellies then many think out there. I believe that the yellow belly is the reason we are finding all the morphs out there in the wild. I think that when a yb mates with a slightly genetic co-dom like a black-back, stripe etc....it produces something outstanding and we have our morphs. There are a lot of yellow bellies out there, either you can watch them be bought and produce awesome stuff and you can get in on the fun! LOL Good luck-Mike

Mike Brooks
TNS Reptiles
Long Island, NY
631-732-4233

>>I believe that the yellow belly is the reason we are finding all the morphs out there in the wild. I think that when a yb mates with a slightly genetic co-dom like a black-back, stripe etc....it produces something outstanding and we have our morphs.

If our morphs come from a het ivory mating w/ a "slightly genetic co-dom" morph ("SGC" for short), then the offspring that are produced would only be normals and combinations of the SGC's and het ivories...not new morphs! The only way this could be true is if the het ivory gene actually mutated the SMC's genes to produce a completely new morph.
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Jeremy Conrad
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...Can't...stop...must...get...more...balls...
2.20 normals
1.0 Matrix Blonde
1.0 Albino (Bell line)
1.0 Het Pied
1.0 Het Clown
1.0 Run-Away (Oh how I miss him!)

that is one of the most baseless theories I have heard on KS...
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when life hands you lemons, make super lemons, bumblebees, etc...

What i was trying to say was that I believe that YB's hold genetics that unlock different mutations in many differnt ball pythons. Sorry about that guys if it came out the wrong way.

-Mike

>>What i was trying to say was that I believe that YB's hold genetics that unlock different mutations in many differnt ball pythons. Sorry about that guys if it came out the wrong way.

Great...I'm totally not dogging on you, but I do wonder what you mean. When it comes down to it, unless a het ivory causes a new genetic mutation to occur (which I have no reason to believe it does) the only way a het ivory gene can effect the "visualness" (phenotype) of a snake is if it is a combination morph (Het Ivory gene another gene)

...If this is the case, when the "unlocked" mutation reproduced, it would parent normals, the original mutation, the het ivory and the new "unlocked" morph (let's just assume they're all dominant for simplicity)

...regardless, if a het ivory plays a part in the creation of a morph, het ivories would be produced when breeding them in the sucessive generations. So, call it goblin, het ivory, yellow belly, or "super-secret decoder gene" it's still a co-dominant gene that (at best) COMBINES w/ other genes to do cool stuff, like the lessers and mojo's.

I do like thinking this out, so keep it up...correct me where I'm not understanding you!
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Jeremy Conrad
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...Can't...stop...must...get...more...balls...

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.

I completely agree...if there was a het ivory x something else, that would be a "morph" to prove out, but in the process of proving it out, het ivories and the other "something else" would be produced, thereby letting us know that it was formed by a het ivory...to the best of my uneducated knowledge, that hasn't happened...

good point
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Jeremy Conrad
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...Can't...stop...must...get...more...balls...

It could also be confused by the "something else" being pretty normal by its self. For years we have been trying to prove the "non genetic stripes" but maybe some of those really are genetic they are just so variable that they don't get noticed until combined with something like YB.