Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know this has been posted many times before, but here I go.

How do you tell if you have a yellow belly?

About a year and a half ago i purchased this WC female (gravid), and noticed she had a very deep yellow belly, now I never really did think she was a yellow belly or anything other then a normal. I assumed the yellow was a stain of some kind from being brought into the states. But it has been 1 1/2 yrs and she still has the brightest yellow bellow i have ever seen. I don't just mean the belly scales, I mean her whole belly and wrapping around towards her sides.
Anyway back to my question, what are some other ways to distinguish a yellow belly from a normal?

Can you post a pic of this snake?

The only sure way to tell is by breeding it back to some like offspring or buying a proven morph. The one thing they usually have in common is the edges of the belly. The color is very speckled kind of like indian popcorn.

belly shot....

I guess thats more or less what im gonna have to try, breed her and try to prove her out. She has a clear belly not much black on the sides but the yellow is a real deep color. Most of the yellow bellies i have seen look like an off white to me.

The yellow belly morph is not necessarily about the yellow of the belly - it's het for ivory, and happens to have a perfectly clear belly and a slightly brighter pattern than the average normal. Yellow belly just refers to how most of the snakes tend to have a yellower belly than most normals, not that the belly is the morph in and of itself.
A snake with a yellow belly is only a yellow belly if it makes ivories. A snake could have a belly brighter yellow than a canary and it still wouldn't be a yellow belly if it didn't make ivories.
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"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words."
- Anna Sewell (1820-1878)