Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everybody, Theres somebody on ks right now trying to sell Het Calico Retics, now my question is, since when is it proven that calicos are simple recessive? If it is proven who did it?
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Pat
1.1 (100% het albino) Retics
1.1 Coastal Carpet Pythons

Calico is not genetic in reticulated pythons. At least, it has not been proven yet. People have bred Calico to Calico, and gotten normal looking retics. Do not even waste your time or money, I am sorry to say. It has to be some genetic "freak" (no pun intended), and must be an age related mutation, or something herpetologists do not yet quite understand in reticulated pythons. Any one trying to sell you a "het" calico snake is just trying to make a few bucks on a snake most serious retic enthusiasts have come to agree is a dead end street, at least as of right now. And, besides, it seems a bad stigma has been placed on retics, and the market shows. Albino retics for $500? Thats a disgrace. Big time breeders not being able to move albino tigers and albino SUPER tigers for a decent price? Unfortunately, the stigma attached to these beautiful animals has hurt the once great market for them, and driven prices down for people who have invested money into them over the last several years. It should be FUN first, and you should certainly know what you are getting into when dealing with the worlds biggest snakes. That said, when you have individuals(they do not post on here folks, please do not think I am talking about you) who PURPOSELY crash the market on a snake just because they can(albino), its disheartening, and its a scary indicator of just how much a once prosepering market, a FUN market, and a way for people to make a profit on ALOT of hard work, is so damn volitile. I do not want to sound like a preacher here, but its probably too late for that, but, please, take my advice. And take it from someone who has 30 reticulated pythons-be careful, get good advice from people you TRUST, and do not believe everything you see, especially here. There is alot of false information going around, alot of people trying to crash the market,(they have already succeeded), and alot of people who do not even OWN a retic who are trying to tell US what is right and wrong. Good luck to all.

S.

Although the verdict still isn't out on Calicos, the general consensus so far seems to lead it to being a genetic mutation that is age dependent and takes years to manifest itself. The smallest wild caught mainland calico I believe was 8ft, and I believe most others were larger than 10ft when caught. Consider their are also a few different types of Calicos floating around that might have different genetic tendencies. I've seen quite a few "Calicos" that look like paradox Albinos, and seem to indeed be Het Albinos but havn't produced the hidden gene "Calico" yet; Others are quite different. If you trust who your buying from thier should be no issues. Just understand that if you do produce offspring from a het pair, they are not going to be visual Calicos from the egg; Though some have stated that they might be able to tell the possible Calicos from the normals. The jury is still out because the offspring aren't old enough to start showing the trait yet.

here is my cb 02 female that changed calico.
Link

I kinda htought it still wasn't proven out, so aren't all the ads on the hets calicos basically fraudulent advertisement?
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Pat
1.1 (100% het albino) Retics
1.1 Coastal Carpet Pythons

Yeah, pretty much. Sorry dude.