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This is a first for us !! It was the neatest thing to find these this morning. This clutch is from our Pastel bred to a Yellow Ghost female.

TW International Inc.

Thanks,
Wyatt

I have twin daughters, and this picture brought up a question in my mind... obviously two snakes from one egg would be identical in the human world... do they have the same markings? Do they look identical?

congrats on the twins! That is the coolest thing ever! I'm hoping to try my hand at breeding in the next year or so...

keep up the great work!

Muggle
Material Witness

In theory they should have identical markings but I have seen other clutches were the twins were not identical in pattern. These are still in the egg at the present time but should be able to tell something in a few days.

Thanks,
Wyatt

I had twins in my first clutch of balls back in 2000. It turned out they where both males but had very different patterns. I saved their first shed skins in case anyone could ever do genetic tests to see if they where genetically identical or not. I have heard of different mutations being twins in the same egg so apparently some times it's just two "eggs" being shelled together. The Barker's said something about looking to see how twins are connected to the yolk to see if they are identical or fraternal but I didn't quite follow how to do that. At any rate, since yours are both the same phenotype the next step will be to see if they are both the same gender and if so it's at least possible they are genetically identical twins. I suspect the exact pattern is like a fingerprint and determined by chance and will never be the same but one would expect genetically identical twins to be similarly patterned (i.e. banded vs. black back etc.).

>>I had twins in my first clutch of balls back in 2000. It turned out they where both males but had very different patterns. I saved their first shed skins in case anyone could ever do genetic tests to see if they where genetically identical or not. I have heard of different mutations being twins in the same egg so apparently some times it's just two "eggs" being shelled together. The Barker's said something about looking to see how twins are connected to the yolk to see if they are identical or fraternal but I didn't quite follow how to do that. At any rate, since yours are both the same phenotype the next step will be to see if they are both the same gender and if so it's at least possible they are genetically identical twins. I suspect the exact pattern is like a fingerprint and determined by chance and will never be the same but one would expect genetically identical twins to be similarly patterned (i.e. banded vs. black back etc.).

This was my understanding too. The egg is more like a 'womb' and can contain two embryos at once that aren't actually twins. Since these are clutch/litter animals it isn't really fair to compare to humans and fraternal vs identical. Though I guess you could just call them 'egg twins'
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Sonya

I've recently seen two ball pythons coming out of the same egg, one of which was albino (I think) and the other was regular (het for albino). I can't remeber which site it was, but it seemed like a reputable breeder, meaning it really did happen.
- Steve

This was recently posted on classifieds

Mojaves started pipping today, and we've got them! This clutch is totally awesome 5 eggs, and 6 Ball Pythons? How twins a normal and a Mojave, WOW! We will try to post some photos soon! Get in on the ground floor!
Thank you,
Camlon Reptiles

cute picture of the two of them in the egg.....congratulations....

Wyatt, that is great! Looks like you guys are having fun. We are still enjoying are little axanthics.
Stephen Lamb