Reptile & Amphibian Forums

There is a blued Lucy breeder claiming that high yellow offspring are the het form of Lucy.
There is a black eyed Lucy breeder claiming the fireball is the het form of the Lucy.
The coral glow is considered the (?) the het form of the whitesmoke.
So, is there then several forms of co dom lucy's?
Or are there only one Lucy that is an anomole?
Is the whitesmoke actually a paradox version of the generalization white snakes being called Lucy. Or are all of these snakes seperate anomoles unto themselves.
Have the other lucys in captivity shown a co dom form or a recessive form?
I want them all and would like to find out for myself but I have a little cash flow problem as it applies to this project.LOL
Any views into this? Thanks
Sizzel

There was an animate discussion on white smoke/coral glow/banana a while back but it sounds to me like they might well all the same thing just with some individual variation and some age variation. Regardless of if they are actually the same gene or not I am pretty sure that no one has had time to breed two of them together yet so all of the ones seen so far are heterozygous and we don't know yet what the homozygous form(s) will look like and if the mutation(s) is/are co-dominant or completely dominant. I wouldn't call any of these snakes leucistic but perhaps the homozygous form will look more leucistic like.

As far as the leucistic looking snakes produced in the last couple years, it looks to me like all of them may well be the homozygous form of co-dominant mutations. In the case of Ralph Davis' where his came from crossing two different lines it's a little cloudy but I'm still thinking even his could be co-dominant. Although the hets and homozygous animals look a little different from the various lines I see a few things in common (such as co-dominant inheritance and faded/wide patterned high contrast hets) so have to wonder if there might be some relation between some of the lines. Maybe some are completely different mutations but of the same gene (alleles) or something like that.

I am the breeder of the Black-eyed Leucistic BP, and I have not claimed the Fireball to be the het form of the Lucy. That claim has been made by Bob Clark, who was to have marketted my lucy line in America,but due to a parting of the ways, this is no longer the case. I am of the opinion that the black-eyed lucy trait is from a simple recessive gene, and it will take quite some time to prove which theory is the correct one. Eric Davies (Herpquest)

Can you fill us in on your breeding results so far?

Is there still only the one black eyed and where both of it's parents fireballs? Does fireball X normal produce about half fireball?

I know this doesn't prove anything but at least would be consistent with the theory that it MIGHT be a co-dominant mutation. Given the co-dominant leanings of the other leucistic like snakes popping up lately maybe we are jumping to conclusions.

n/p

I have no idea what the "parting of the ways" was between Eric Davies and Bob Clark but per Bob's home page (lower left sponsor link at the top of this forum main page) it sounds like perhaps Bob and Mike Wilbanks have at least one presumed het they are working with.

If Eric has a Herpquest page with info on this project hopefully someone will post a link as I'm not finding one now.

Also, does anyone know how the Rick Page leucistic project is going?

Over the years I've owned two different males that looked a little like the fireball pics but breeding didn't show either to be co-dominant (I don't think either had the belly or was quite as nice looking all around). Perhaps Eric can fill us in on some of the history of his leucistic, sounds like the exciting story we all dream of every time a new clutch is hatching.
Bob Clark's Home Page

Randy, we have written to each other a couple of times, and I wasn't aware that you didn't know! I am 'Rick Page! My full name is Eric Page-Davies, hence the name 'Rick Page' when I first produced the Black-eyed Lucy. Sorry if I misled you bro'.

No problem, just me being a dork as usual. I'll have to look through my e-mails on the other computer and see what we talked about. The upside of being senile is that I get to re-discover things over and over!

I am a boa breeder first and foremost and was here because I'm thinking of jumping into the "ball Python Pool" so to speak. I won't pretend to be that knowledgable concerning the different ball python morphs. Most of the genetic mutations we see in reptile breeding are not unique. Things like albinos and leucistics occur as mutations across the animal kingdom and have accepted descriptions that define those particular characteristics. My question is, as far as I know, Leucistics, as part of their recognized description within the animal kingdom, are described as having "BLUE" eyes. Has there been an amendment to that description to include "Black Eyed" Leucistics?? Are we trying to make something fit into an already defined genetic mutation with accepted characteristics just to make it easier?? I'm not claiming to be an expert but the "black eyed" ball python is certainly unique but might not actually be a "leucistic". There might be something else and as yet unnamed, brewing inside those genes!! LOL What do you think??
Link

I don't think we have yet seen the perfectly white blue eyed leucistic. It looks to me like the blue eyed ones have faint yellow stripes and the black eyed ones might be cleaner white. Don't get me wrong, they are all very very nice, they just don't fit your description of what a leucistic should be.

The Barkers came up with a leucistic type numbering scheme to make sense of these ( http://www.vpi.com/4VPIInventory/VPIPriceList/BallPicPages/ballpythonpatterntext.htm ). Some breeders have abandoned the leucistic name altogether for some balls that might have easily been given the name as babies (NERD's Pearl and Snake Keeper's Ivory).

My thinking is that the balls being called "leucistic" are close enough, especially when you consider examples such as "leucistic" leopard geckos.

Thanks Randy. I've seen 3 examples of Vin Russo's "Blue Eyed" Leucistics and I don't remember seeing any stripe on them. Those are the only leucistics I've actually seen in the flesh. I've seen what I think is being called the "Ivory" at Daytona and I don't think they are the same at all. I didn't really go over Vin Russo's with a fine tooth comb but there wasn't any obvious color or stripe that jumped out at you. I might have just been blinded by the overall animal as their blue eyes are really incredible but then again, I've been a sucker for blue eyes all my life.........just ask my girlfriend!! LOL

Image

I've not seen any of them in person (or much of any other morphs for that matter) but somewhere or another I got the idea that the leucistics belonging to Mr. Russo, Mr. Davis, and Mr. Kahl all have faint yellow stripes down the back. Maybe there is just something about ball pythons that makes this stripe. It must be pretty subtle (if it is really there at all) not to show up in many of the pictures and for you not to even see it in person. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, just something interesting to wonder about.