# Site General > General Herp >  Scaleless snakes

## Jons2012pied

So I have been seeing more and more scaleless snakes at shows. Usually corns and rats. Is this a mutation or morph. Could it be possible for the next big thing is scaleless bps?  With them being scaleless do they still shed like normal? Is the housing conditions different as in the substrate so they do not get irritated?

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## ericarditti

i saw some of these at the Harve De Grace show, they blew my mind. Ive never seen anything like them.

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## mercerasian

Pretty sure it's a morph and ball pythons don't have any discovered equivalent. There's also quite a bit of controversy regarding scaleless snakes just because it's considered unnatural. BHB has a youtube video that shows some of the scaleless corns they produce.

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## dr del

Hi,

There *have* been scaleless ball pythons found just not bred for various unfortunate reasons.

Google "dermaball"


dr del

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_eatgoodfood_ (02-25-2013)

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## Skiploder

Why settle for scaleless?

I'm sure if the community tried hard enough, a skinless ball python could be bred.

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_Coleslaw007_ (02-25-2013),_RobNJ_ (02-27-2013)

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## Kodieh

BHB had a form of scaleless that are bald, they have no scales on their head. 

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## Pythonfriend

scaleless snakes are fine, they are healthy and shed in one piece. (BTW: genetic mutations and morphs are the same thing.)

whats important is that the scales at the belly need to stay, the snakes need these to move. But so far the breeders seem to be taking care that the scales on the belly stay intact.

for ball pythons, as others mentioned, at least one case is known, but they somehow didnt manage to breed it. One problem scaleless BPs might have is that all the heat-sensing pits they have on the front of their head might end up covered by a layer of skin.

BHB has ball pythons that lack scales on the top of the head and its genetic, they are working on it and hoping to increase the scaleless area. I think its a morph that will eventually be discovered. 

without scales, all patterns become much more clean and all coloration becomes stronger. Patterns can be much finer, and the outline of the pattern, well, it is as if you increase the graphic resolution, lines that are zig-zag because of the scales become totally smooth. 

But when we get this gene for BPs, two issues to look out for are already known: Heat pits, and the important scales on the belly. 


aaaaand here it is, still some scales left, heat-pit issue is visible, but just look at the blockbuster optics:

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nykea (02-27-2013)

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## Bluebonnet Herp

Boas and woma pythons do fine without heat pits. It's just an addition to the majority of pythons. Besides, who said they still don't detect infrared? Maybe those pits were just holes in the scales that exposed sensitive skin, just now there isn't scales to have said holes in.
As with all animals in the pet trade, they can have mutations/deformities and still survive as uniqueness is simply a desired trait. Humanity has essentially formed its own game of survival of the fittest, except its survival of the prettiest. As long as they are fed safe foods and retain belly scales for mobility, they're okay with me. I just wonder if their eyes are ever irritated- that would suck to have irritated eyes and not be able to blink. I would also keep them slightly more humid and use softer, dust-free substrate. Although I would love to just settle for bald ball pythons.

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## ericarditti

what would you breed to make these? or is it unknown and thats why there havent been many produced?

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## 4theSNAKElady

Im sorry, but i think those guys are ugly. My opnion, but to me snakes are meant to have scales...its the same thing with those bearded dragons. Its one thing to want to save the life of a snake born without scales, but a whole other thing to selectively breed for that trait. Theyre wierd and i just would never own one.

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*Bogertophis* (05-25-2018)

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## Pythonfriend

i think when the heat pits are covered with skin like this, they are essentially gone. Infrared radiation can be effectively blocked by the thinnest paper you can imagine, and a layer of skin will do the job. And only the geometry of the pits allows ball pythons to detect the direction of incoming infrared radiation, for any directional sensing the pits need to be deep, essentially the derma-ball in the picture is half blind.

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## gaiaeagle

I remember hearing about these when I was on a corn snake community. Personally, I don't like them. I would prefer mine to have scales. Just like the hairless cats. I prefer my cats to have fur (which I have three cats too). We dinker around with genetics so much, why do we need to breed for something so unnatural? I can understand why people think they are neat, but to me, it is kinda like looking at a freak show, and I feel sorry for the animal. Their skin has got to be more tender and more prone to injury and infections. I agree with what someone said above. It is one thing to save the life of one that was born without scales, it is another thing to selectively breed for it. I don't know. Just my two cents. This is one subject with snakes that I'll just agree to disagree about it.

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## Cendalla

I know a lot of people won't agree with me and I'm not trying to create an argument but I really feel that we should be looking towards the preservation of these different species and purposely breeding in a flaw is counter productive. Yes, it is interesting. Yes, it is cool to learn whats going on. I just feel that that should be as far as it goes. Same for breeding with the mindset of having a cool color- what is the point when they are sterile or consistently produce unviable offspring? Anyways- not trying to pick a fight just my thoughts.

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## Kodieh

> I know a lot of people won't agree with me and I'm not trying to create an argument but I really feel that we should be looking towards the preservation of these different species and purposely breeding in a flaw is counter productive. Yes, it is interesting. Yes, it is cool to learn whats going on. I just feel that that should be as far as it goes. Same for breeding with the mindset of having a cool color- what is the point when they are sterile or consistently produce unviable offspring? Anyways- not trying to pick a fight just my thoughts.


You almost had complete logic there. In fact, breeding for color at all is breeding in a flaw. Do honestly think that a banana or bee would survive in the wild? It can't hide! 

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_Bluebonnet Herp_ (03-01-2013),*Bogertophis* (05-25-2018)

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## satomi325

> Do honestly think that a banana or bee would survive in the wild? It can't hide! 
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG Galaxy SIII using Tapatalk 2


I'm not really aiming this at you, but just in general.

I know everyone always talks about how the bright morphs can't survive in the wild due to lack of camouflage. But ball pythons are nocturnal and hide in burrows or termite mounds during the day where visibility is the best. So they generally are not out and about unless its dark. Bright pastels and some albinos are still found in Africa and are being imported. Even some adults. The first bannana and coral glows are imports. That has so say something right?

 Just my $.02.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

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C.Marie (05-25-2018)

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## Cendalla

> You almost had complete logic there. In fact, breeding for color at all is breeding in a flaw. Do honestly think that a banana or bee would survive in the wild? It can't hide! 
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG Galaxy SIII using Tapatalk 2


Which is why I don't have a dozen as if they were pokemon. I won't lie- I have seen some retics that have made my go 'wow, ain't nature grand?' And then realize that nature has a tendency to cull that from the wild. Its man's (and/or woman's) intervention that has allowed it and nurtured it. Call it evolution or design but nature (in most cases) favors what can hide and hunt successfully. While we can help these morphs along to see its (arguable) potential I just can't see any reason to breed for something without scales or pits. I know the dollar (or whatever currency) is important at different degrees to everyone but I hate seeing people jump on a fad because they will make a quick buck. Its an emotional argument in the end because everyone can spout numbers and statistics to support their side. I'll just never put my money in that direction. 

Thank goodness I'm not up here trying to talk about crossbreeding. Because that argument is a bloody dang nightmare!

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## Kodieh

> I'm not really aiming this at you, but just in general.
> 
> I know everyone always talks about how the bright morphs can't survive in the wild due to lack of camouflage. But ball pythons are nocturnal and hide in burrows or termite mounds during the day where visibility is the best. So they generally are not out and about unless its dark. Bright pastels and some albinos are still found in Africa and are being imported. Even some adults. The first bannana and coral glows are imports. That has so say something right?
> 
>  Just my $.02.
> 
> Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2


But are those officially WC or CH? I honestly find it hard to believe there is a real WC albino out there, at adult size (which for me is 1200g or better). CH I can believe, capture mom let her lay and then let her go, hatch out an albino and voila. 

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## asplundii

> Boas and woma pythons do fine without heat pits.


Many boas have heat pits. See this ETB: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...9QEwBA&dur=574

Woma pythons (and Blackhead pythons) also have heat pits, they are just not as flagrant as those of other pythons




> i think when the heat pits are covered with skin like this, they are essentially gone. Infrared radiation can be effectively blocked by the thinnest paper you can imagine, and a layer of skin will do the job. And only the geometry of the pits allows ball pythons to detect the direction of incoming infrared radiation, for any directional sensing the pits need to be deep, essentially the derma-ball in the picture is half blind.


You are quite mistaken about these animals losing their ability to sense heat. I do not know why people assume that a lack of the physical "pit" means that the snake suddenly loses the ability to sense heat. The nerves for sensing heat are still present in a scale-less ball python and they still reside in the lip area. Losing the scales that define the pit has no impact on the nerves that are present in those areas. In point of fact the pits are the result of an evolutionary process to allow those nerves to be directly exposed and not be covered by scales while still offering a degree of protection to the underlying exposed skin. The snake in that picture is not "half blind" at all, in fact, if you look back at the picture you can make out the indentation of a couple of pits, on just below the nostril and one just forward of there. It can sense heat just fine.

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## Robyn@SYR

> But are those officially WC or CH? I honestly find it hard to believe there is a real WC albino out there, at adult size (which for me is 1200g or better). CH I can believe, capture mom let her lay and then let her go, hatch out an albino and voila.


There have been plenty of adult sized mutations found in the wild, including pieds and albinos.

And personally, the scaleless thing is not for me.

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_satomi325_ (02-27-2013)

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## Raven01

> You almost had complete logic there. In fact, breeding for color at all is breeding in a flaw. Do honestly think that a banana or bee would survive in the wild? It can't hide! 
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG Galaxy SIII using Tapatalk 2


The first known white ball python was wild caught so, yeah it could survive.
The "morphs" in BP's so far are pretty much all selective expression in greater quantity than normal of existing wild gene mutations.
Also, breeding for preservation is a non-issue so long as accurate breeding records are kept.  Then even hybrids are not a "problem" as those snakes would automatically be excluded from breeding programs aimed at re-introduction should some catastrophe suddenly kill off most wild BP's.

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## Pythonfriend

> You are quite mistaken about these animals losing their ability to sense heat. I do not know why people assume that a lack of the physical "pit" means that the snake suddenly loses the ability to sense heat. The nerves for sensing heat are still present in a scale-less ball python and they still reside in the lip area. Losing the scales that define the pit has no impact on the nerves that are present in those areas. In point of fact the pits are the result of an evolutionary process to allow those nerves to be directly exposed and not be covered by scales while still offering a degree of protection to the underlying exposed skin. The snake in that picture is not "half blind" at all, in fact, if you look back at the picture you can make out the indentation of a couple of pits, on just below the nostril and one just forward of there. It can sense heat just fine.


yes they can still sense heat, just like i can with the back of my hand. But they can no longer sense which direction the heat is coming from. If you have a pit, and a source of warmth in front of you, some areas in the pit will get infrared radiation and other areas of the pit are in the shadow.

 :Sunny: ..........            :Sunny:   <--- two heat sources  (please ignore the points .......  couldnt get it done without them, formatting issues)

           ........*----*             <--- flat surface

in this case, both heat sources cannot be distinguished from one another. both illuminate all of the heat-sensitive skin. 

 :Sunny:              ........... :Sunny:   <--- two heat sources

             .........*\/\/   *          <--- surface with pits

in this case, the two sources of radiation can be distinguished. when the left heat source is radiating, the green segments will be activated and the red ones will be in shadow. Ball pythons, with their row of 10 heat pits, can do that so well that blind snakes can find and strike a rhodent and hit it. Flatten the surface, and almost all the data is lost. its like having an eye without a lens, that only senses how bright it is in front of the head, without producing an image. 

so i do think the heat pit issue is a real issue.

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## xFenrir

Not trying to start anything, but I think the whole argument of "would it survive in the wild?" is completely irrelevant when you're talking about animals that will never know what the "wild" is. The wild has mainly "normals" because that's what survives best out there. But in captivity, there's no advantage or disadvantage to color or size or any other physical attribute. Also, there are very few morphs that actually carry a genetic flaw, like the Spider or Pearl.

I feel it's an apples to oranges comparison. Why debate it, unless you're somehow planning to release morphs BACK to the wild?

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C.Marie (05-25-2018),_Crotalids_ (02-28-2013)

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## meowmeowkazoo

Scaleless snakes are gross looking.

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## asplundii

> yes they can still sense heat, just like i can with the back of my hand. But they can no longer sense which direction the heat is coming from. If you have a pit, and a source of warmth in front of you, some areas in the pit will get infrared radiation and other areas of the pit are in the shadow.
> 
> in this case, both heat sources cannot be distinguished from one another. both illuminate all of the heat-sensitive skin. 
> 
> in this case, the two sources of radiation can be distinguished. when the left heat source is radiating, the green segments will be activated and the red ones will be in shadow. Ball pythons, with their row of 10 heat pits, can do that so well that blind snakes can find and strike a rhodent and hit it. Flatten the surface, and almost all the data is lost. its like having an eye without a lens, that only senses how bright it is in front of the head, without producing an image. 
> 
> so i do think the heat pit issue is a real issue.



And again I contend that the heat pit issue it is not one.

Your hand analogy is comparing apples to oranges. First off, you can tell direction of heat from the back of your hand (or at least I can at any rate) but more importantly, the nerves on the back of your hand are not evolved for the purpose of heat detection unlike the nerves that populate the pits. Secondly, the heat-sensing nerves are so sensitive that they can detect fractions of a degree differences so the, for lack of a better term, "decay" of heat over distance between any, say, three pits would create a heat "gradient" that would allow for accurate pinpointing.

Further, the upper lip area of a ball python is not flat like your example would contend, but is instead curved which adds another dimension by which to create a "gradient" for detection _and_ would most certainly provide a right/left orientation.

Lastly, there are a second set of pits on each side of the mouth that line the back region of the lower jaw area. These increase the amount of information received by the animal thereby offering greater "resolution" of the direction of the source.


Or, in a rough picture:

Ball python face

......*__**__*
.....*/*......*\*
....*/*........*\*
.../...........\
../.............\
.*/*..............*\*
*/*................*\*



And now if we insert your heat sources:

 :Sunny: .......... :Sunny: 



......*__**__*
.....*/*......*\*
....*/*........*\*
.../...........\
../.............\
.*/*..............*\*
*/*................*\*


If you project the path of the "heat" from each source then the simple bilateral nature of the head give the snake the ability to orient left/right without the need for pits. And having three separate regions of heat-sensing nerves, each made up of multiple sub-components, allows for a "parallax" that provides further information about the position and distance of the heat source.

Basically the face of the ball python is a heat interferometer, even without the physical structure of the pits

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C.Marie (05-25-2018)

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## zina10

interesting..

but I have to say, I'm sure the pits are there for a reason, perhaps they protect that area. 

Still not a fan..

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## Skyrivers

> Why settle for scaleless?
> 
> I'm sure if the community tried hard enough, a skinless ball python could be bred.


Why stop at skinless? Why not zombie? 

hehehehehehehehehe.

Sorry could not resist.

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## JRLongton

Please read my post in the respectful tone in which I intended it to be read.

I'm no biologist, but I'm sure those pits are there for a reason.

I don't need any complicated explanation to understand that a covered heat sensing pit is less sensitive than an open one.

How much less? Is it marginal, like wearing a pair of clear glass glasses, or is it more dramatic, like wearing a pair of dirty extra dark sunglasses?

We simply can't know because the BP can't tell us. But maybe we want to be a bit more hesitant before we so drastically alter the creatures physiology.

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*Bogertophis* (05-25-2018)

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## Stewart_Reptiles

5 years thread peeps  :Good Job:

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_asplundii_ (05-29-2018),C.Marie (05-25-2018),dr del (05-25-2018)

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## JRLongton

LOL!! 

I dind't notice. There was a similar thread going on recently and I thought this was a continuation.

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## zina10

> 5 years thread peeps


True, but this was linked to from a current thread  :Smile:

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