I'm wondering; if someone were to produce an 'artificial' ball python, a morph that can't occur in nature, would you be interested in owning one?
I know that there are many people opposed to hybridization of ball pythons with other snakes, so my first instinct is that an artificial morph wouldn't go down very well, but what do you think?
Scientists have put the gene for fluorescence (which came from jellyfish and coral) into things like pigs, cats, mice and plants. They've put a gene for pest-resistance that originally occurred in bacteria into corn and rice plants. With that being said, it wouldn't be very difficult to put a gene that produces blue or red coloring (from, say, a blue tree monitor and a blood python, respectively) into a ball python.
So, lets say that tomorrow someone came out with a solid-blue ball python that they produced by splicing tree monitor genes into it. The gene is simple-recessive inheritable. What would happen?