Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I keep seeing "yellow Belly" BP's on the classifieds. I look at their pics but really cant see what all the fuss is about..Not really yellow looking and why so expensive? Not knocking anybody who is selling one...Its just i have no clue to what it is suppose to be..a morph? can someone please explain what a "yellow belly" is?? Thank you!

I've never heard of this morph except for the two ads I've seen it in. Maybe it has another name that I'm more familiar with? I also can't tell what makes this snake so special. I must be missing something when I look at the pics.

Jake

Yes they have a different name its Phantom. When breed together you can produce The Ivory Ball check out this link: http://ballpython.com/morph.php?morph=ivory
When breed to a Lesser Platty you can procude The Lecustic Ball. You can check out the Lecustic at Ralp Daivis site. Ask if you have more questions.

Well I went to the link at the SnakeKeepers site and yeah, I'm impressed with the Ivories. But I have to agree with these guys, I don't see the "yellow belly" and besides, what does that have to do with the ivories. It makes no mention on their site of them??? And you also see "white bellies" now. Are we starting to grasp for straws....maybe just a little??

I have a dozen or so balls which have bellies that resemble those ones for sale. I don't understand it either?? Maybe I'm missing something as well...is there a particular trait I should be looking for?

Chris

From what I have heard, someone produced a white ball (leucistic...ivory...i dunno which one) and so they beleieve that this snake has the genetics to produce such a snake...but I don't believe that its been completely proven yet. Just my 2 cents.

Luke

My normal Ball has a very yellow belly, and he is just a normal ball, they will sometimes have yellow pigmentation, I was never aware of this being a special trait

I'm by no means an expert on the yellow belly thing and haven't seen one (I don't think) but apparently there is more to it than just the color of the belly. I believe there should be no black and the belly and the black should tend to group around the edges of the belly sort of like a bloodred cornsnake. There may also be something about the dark pattern fading low on the sides and other factors to distinguish the real thing.

Details are pretty sketchy and I'm not sure that anyone knows all there is to know about them yet. Yellow bellies might or might not relate to other mutations associated with white snakes (phantom, platy, maybe even mojave). I think the speculation is that some of these may be the heterozygous forms and the Ivory/Leucistic may be the homozygous.

It’s sort of ironic that after years of people getting scorned for pointing out subtle variations in snakes for sale all of the sudden we have stumbled on some subtle variations which appear to point out gene carriers for mutations which are much more stunning in the homozygous form.

Regarding the slow (over the summer or perhaps even over years) leak of information to the general public regarding this project I'm frankly a little disappointed that it’s taken this long and is still this sketchy. With such big bucks and tough competition involved I guess I can understand it. For good or bad these aren't cornsnakes and aren’t just for the fun of it. The big bucks drive the productions to get these slow producing snakes out as quickly as possible (probably would take forever at corn snake prices). Unless I'm ever in the position to have a new morph all my own I guess I can't really say what I'd do.

We'll the only thing they say on there site is the breed to similiar balls together. If you produced an Ivory would you tell everybody how? Didnt think so, neither would I. The yellow bellies have been proven. Peter Kahl and others have been working with them for years.

How do I explain how they look? Thats a tuffy. We'll they look like pastels(but not as nice as pastels). They have large amounts of yellow on there bellies(the name). If you had them in your collection you would now. As for these snakes you see in the classifieds. Im not to sure about them. Jared's is defientally real. The other 2 I'm not so sure about. I will try to get some better pics for you'll to stare at. But there really hard to photograph. If you would like to see more pics check out this link. Hope I helped. Ask any more questions and ill try to answer. Or if I left something out ask again.
Photo Group 23 at this link:
http://imageevent.com/royalpythonreptiles?n=0