Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've seen recently where a few people have been asking questions regarding the Crystal Balls so I thought I would update everyone with some photos and there history.
To produce the first Crystal I bred a Mojave to what I call a "Special" female... I had no idea of the results and was floored when the first 0.1 Crystal came out of a clutch of four eggs. There was also 1.0 normal, 0.1 Mojave, and 0.1 "Special Mojave" (different coloration from Mojaves).
The following year I bred the same parents and ended up with 2.2 Crystals with one of the females being paradoxed! I also ended up with 1.1 "Special Mojaves" and 0.1 possible "Special"...
Later in the season I also produced a clutch from what I now call a "Special Pastel". The very first season the "Special" mother was bred to a Pastel... There was an extraordinary Pastel that I held back... Once I knew the potential of the mother I decided to breed her Pastel daughter to a Mojave... I ended up with 1.1 Pastel Crystals, 0.1 Mojave, 0.1 Normal, and 1.0 Pastel...
I have had great luck with this project and am hoping to produce a Super Pastel Crystal and maybe even a Super Crystal in the next couple seasons! I also have not released any photos of the "Special" female, but will once I have a better understanding of her genetics, maybe this season...
The lighting was a little messed up for the photos so I apologize for some of the shadows...
Let me know what you think,
Tom Baker
pythondreams@cox.net
2006 Crystal Male

2006 Paradox Crystal Female (will be shedding very soon)

2005 "Special Mojave" Female

2006 Pastel Crystal Male (just finished 3rd shed)

2006 Pastel Crystal Female

Pastel Crystals Together...

Damn they are sweet.....rock on!
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RicK & Caitlyn @ Ball Boutique, Inc.

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Thanks Rick!

Tom, your crystals rock! I can't wait till you figure out that "special" female and pot pics of her. Good luck this season.
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Alice Cobb

Hopefully it will be this season... Thanks!

Tom -

They are gorgeous! You Rock!

And they all want to come live at my house!
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Tosha

Tosha,
I can hear some of the girls calling your name.... They want to live with you!

Tom can you post a pic of the special mojave with a normal mojave..
Great lookin snakes you have and what a fun project..
Kevin Stoltz
Link

I'm actually about to head out for the night, but I will try and put some up tommorrow evening... Their really is a considerable difference where the "Special Mojave" has oranges and some greens creeping in and a lighter overall coloration. I'm hoping to see if their might be a different Super "Special" Mojave next season.

Those are beautiful Tom, I have a Mojave breeding everything he goes in with this year, and your explanation here really gets me pumped up about the season. Did you consider your "special" female special before you got your first Crystal? Did you see something different in her or just a normal?
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Dale....dgoins222@yahoo.com
www.LibertyReptiles.com

When I first got her I thought she was kinda cool looking but really nothing exciting... Then I bred a Pastel to her and I got one really nice looking Pastel, but nothing out of the ordinary. It really was a complete 100% surprise!

Tom, which ever ones don't wanna go live with Tosha can come live with me Those are gorgeous!! Good luck figuring out the rest of it.

Quig
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Don't interupt me when I'm talkin' to myself

Those snakes are unreal. I think my heart would stop if I saw one of those pipping out of its egg!

You mention you had a clutch from Pastel X Special...did you keep all the other offspring as well? Did any of the other hatchlings show any characteristics of the "special"? How many "Specials" have you produced to date? Or if that's not info you'd like to share...you have produced more "specials" not counting the Pastel & Mojave crosses? Could you post a photo of the "Special/Pastel" parent of the Pastel Crystals? Congratulations on this, sucess stories such as yours make all the time I spend on "special" looking animals worthwhile! Thanks for the excellent photos as well.

Horridus

Great shots Tom! Those pastel crystals are simply amazing...

Congrats and keep posting pictures

Regards,
Bristen.
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___________________________
www.RoyalGemReptiles.com

Are you referring to the special female as a Crystal or the designer morph that results from Mojave X special as a Crystal? I'm not trying to bust your balls ( )or anything (and by the way those are about the most amazing balls I've seen) but I don't understand how you can call a Pastel X special a Pastel Crystal if the Crystal Ball is a Mojave designer morph.
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"yeah, eagles have feathers hanging off of them too and I don't smoke --- out of them!" PS it was a dream catcher!

It's my understanding the resulting offspring from a pastel to a "special" was raised and bred to a Mojave to produce the Pastel Crystal...right?

Meaning the pastel crystal is a combo or Pastel X Mojave X "Special"

did he write that and I just missed it? I guess I'll re-read it.
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"yeah, eagles have feathers hanging off of them too and I don't smoke --- out of them!" PS it was a dream catcher!

That is correct. The Pastel Crystals are a triple combo produced from breeding a "Special Pastel" to a Mojave... I might of written it a little hard to understand..

I just read it wrong. Thanks.
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"yeah, eagles have feathers hanging off of them too and I don't smoke --- out of them!" PS it was a dream catcher!

Hey Tom

Have you tried breeding the "special" to a butter/ lesser to see if a crystal is produced?

Maybe the Crystal complex is analogous to the Blue Eyed Leucistic pattern that occurs in Butter/ Lesser/ Phantom/ VR breedings. I'd be pretty amazing/ interesting if it were so...

Truch from Oakland

Since this past season BHB Enterprises DID produce a Crystal Ball of their own. (It even has a patch of Paradox colouration on it.)

If I remember correctly BHB produced their Crystal(s) using a Lesser. Someone will surely correct me if my memory has failed me. lol

Check out the link below to see photos of BHB's Crystal posted on Exotics By Nature's webpage.

BB
BHB's Crystal Ball

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"Have you hugged your drummer today?" --- Me

I do believe that a Crystal can be produced from any of those snakes you mentioned... But I donot own any Butters or Lessers, so it will be a little while before I can do those breedings!

I'm sure you'd have NO problems getting a butter loaner male for another crystal project. If I had one I'd let you borrow it for a piece of that pie.
Those are AWESOME snakes.
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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

One possible explanation is that the "special" gene is another mutant allele of the white snake complex which already apparently includes lesser, butter, mojave, phantom, Vin Russo, and perhaps a dilute gene that turns lesser into phantom but is otherwise hard or perhaps impossible to see on its own. In this theory the crystal is sort of a super like the leucistics and I think also the platy but it's on the more colorful end of the spectrum.

Anyone have a better scientific term than "super" for an animal that is a combination of two different mutant alleles of the same gene/locus? I thought I heard one once but can't remember it now.

However, the fly in the ointment of this theory is the "special mojave". For this theory to hold those would have to be something else because the theory is that the crystal is already the combination of one mojave allele and one "special" allele. Is the "special mojave" just an extreme but normal mojave, perhaps influenced by some other gene in the mother's line but not the same "special" gene that makes the crystal?

Sorry, too early in the morning. Should read:

One possible explanation is that the "special" gene is another mutant allele of the white snake complex which already apparently includes lesser, butter, mojave, phantom, Vin Russo, and perhaps a dilute gene that turns lesser into PLATINUM but is otherwise hard or perhaps impossible to see on its own.

Couple of tangents

My guess is that the Platty gene is a hidden recessive gene that comes only from the Platty Daddy (or another "Daddy" if one is found) who probably is double homozogynous for Co-dom "Lesser" gene and the special recessive "Platinum" gene.

So the reason why Lesser x Lesser breedings are not producing Plattys is that most of them are too far removed from the original Platty Daddy to have a very high percentage of carrying his special recessive gene.

It could be too that using Lessers instead of Mojaves will clean up the Crystals look, the same way it works for BELS.

I saw the Super Lori (which looked a lot like the Super Spotnose)-- maybe there are different complexes in BPs like BELs, Crystals, Pastel, that can be produced through a bunch of genetically incompatible though different genes.

Does Tom know if his "special" female has a super yet?

Truch

RDR produced a platy from butter X platy line animal. That was without any inbreeding so I don't think it's recessive. All the platy production he reported through 05 was consistent with the allele of lesser theory. That's not the same as saying it's proven, it's just not disproved.

It's interesting though that this theoretical dilute gene doesn't seem to have a visibly different homozygous. The only time you ever seem to see it is when combined with lesser and now butter. Would be interesting to see what it did with mojave. Maybe the crystal is a platy mojave.

>

I personally find this theory very interesting... however, did not somebody produce a crystal using a "special gene" x "lesser"? Or am I confused? Should that not of produced a platty if the above theory was correct?

Regards,
Bristen.
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___________________________
www.RoyalGemReptiles.com

>Anyone have a better scientific term than "super" for an animal that is a combination of two different mutant alleles of the same gene/locus? I thought I heard one once but can't remember it now.

Heterozygous (mutant1)//(mutant2). Replace the (mutant1) and (mutant2) with the actual names of the mutant genes. This works whether the two mutant alleles are dominant, codominant, or recessive to the normal allele.

Paul Hollander

As always, one of the most beautiful morphs that will ever be produced in my opinion. Very, very nice!
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Morph Evolutions
www.morphevolutions.com