Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i am reposting the pic from an earlier post down below. my internet service was out for a couple days so i didn't get a chance to answer the questions about this snake. i purchased it from MKR earlier this year. it was sold to me as a pastel only. i thought that the belly pattern looked different than the other pastel i have but i haven't seen enough pastels to know how common it is.

here is a dorsal pic of the same snake.

here is a pic of the ventral surface of one of my yellow bellies

Relatively new to this and don't want to ask stupid questions but. Besides the fact that there is yellow on the belly. What other charateristics can you look for in these morphs. I mean, I have a BP that has yellow on her belly but I'm sure she is not a YB. Or is it very difficult to tell? MAybe shed some light on this for us beginners to the morph world.

Here is the girl that has some yellow on her belly. (Not saying she is a yellow belly just like to share the pic) Sorry, don't have a good pic of her belly. Hard to capture it without good lighting. The orange on her sides is accurate in the pic.

Just from looking at the pictures it seems to me that a yellow belly should have black marks excluded from all three belly scales and the black should be piled up as small checks near the outside edge of the two smaller belly scales. Sometimes you see some yellow pigment mixed into the belly but the main thing seems to be that there should be very little if any black on those three belly scales and the black at the edge should be really small broken up squares concentrated together to almost form a line.

There may also be some more subtle things about the dorsal pattern or perhaps color that I haven’t picked up on yet. And it also looks like on the lower sides the dark pattern tends to widen leaving fading at the center.

I don't think that MKR would sell you that animal without looking at the belly and considering whether or not it was a yellowbelly or not. According to recent pics of a yellowbelly pastel, it looks a little different. Only time will tell if you do indeed have a yellowbelly. Maybe you could email MKR and ask about the parents. That would be the best bet to determine if you struck gold.

Good luck with your bp.

Michael Ibanez

No breeder is going to mistake a combo morph like that..............

Jared

So you think the white belly is just from the pastel part and the checks are not enough for a real yellow belly?

Still it would be interesting to see the "normal" mom as apparently people have been missing yellow bellies for years. Is the other one here the same deal, just an odd pastel?