Trying to understand base morphs, help?

[sorraia]

I'm trying to understand the different morphs found in ball pythons, starting with the base morphs.
So far I've been using this forum as a reference: checking old threads, the Hunter's Guides, and the morph stickies with pictures. I've also been checking out the World of Ball Pythons website.

Here's where I'm getting confused: Apparently there are different names for the same morph.

These are a few I've seen mention of being the same. Can I get confirmation of this?
Sugar = Calico
Lesser = Butter
Black pastel = Cinnamon
Yellow belly = Goblin

Can anyone direct me to a list or website that gives all the names for each morph? Or at least the more common morphs I would be likely to encounter?

[The Serpent Merchant]

Sugar = Calico
Lessers and butters are 2 lines of the same morph
Black Pastels and Cinnamons are similar but not the same morph


Here is the morph list: http://www.worldofballpythons.com/morphs/

[RoseyReps]

The problem here is that there are some people who believe these are separate yet related morphs, and some who believe they are the same.
What happens is two snakes, with similar attributes, are imported from Africa. Each of the breeders proves out said snakes, and they each name them differently. The morph names, when dealing with similiar/same morphs, can be considered "lines" if you like. Think, Graziani Pastel, Citrus Pastel, lemon pastel, etc. Each have their own attributes, or qualities, that make them that line, but they are still pastels.

Sugar's and Calico's can be the same, I've seen more high white sugar's than calico's...Not sure how accurate that is, but it's something I've noticed.

This is my novice's standpoint, if they look similar, make the same/similar super, and do the same/similar things in combo's, then they are just different "lines" with different attributes. Cinni's tend to be browner than black pastels, but I've seen black pastels that were brown, and cinni's that were black/dark. The variation is so vast in any morph, that it's hard to say if they are different morphs, or just slightly tweaked lines.

Flame = fire = lemonback = sulfur
Yellowbelly = goblin = orangbelly = bling
Het Red Axanthics = Lace black back = Green Pastel

It's a headache, and no short way (That I know of) to learn them all. Just a lot of reading, research, chatting, and straight up asking questions. It will get easier as time goes by, and you learn more and more about the different morphs and what defines them, to see the differences/similarities and be able to make an educated guess. Until then, keep asking, searching, reading, and learning. Sorry I wasn't more helpful, I'm a newbie too, this is just my opinion / conclusions thus far.

[sorraia]

Sugar = Calico
Lessers and butters are 2 lines of the same morph
Black Pastels and Cinnamons are similar but not the same morph


Here is the morph list: http://www.worldofballpythons.com/morphs/

Thanks. I've been looking at that site, but they have some morphs listed separately that may or may not actually be separate. That's what I'm trying to figure out with this post.

The problem here is that there are some people who believe these are separate yet related morphs, and some who believe they are the same.
What happens is two snakes, with similar attributes, are imported from Africa. Each of the breeders proves out said snakes, and they each name them differently. The morph names, when dealing with similiar/same morphs, can be considered "lines" if you like. Think, Graziani Pastel, Citrus Pastel, lemon pastel, etc. Each have their own attributes, or qualities, that make them that line, but they are still pastels.

Sugar's and Calico's can be the same, I've seen more high white sugar's than calico's...Not sure how accurate that is, but it's something I've noticed.

This is my novice's standpoint, if they look similar, make the same/similar super, and do the same/similar things in combo's, then they are just different "lines" with different attributes. Cinni's tend to be browner than black pastels, but I've seen black pastels that were brown, and cinni's that were black/dark. The variation is so vast in any morph, that it's hard to say if they are different morphs, or just slightly tweaked lines.

Flame = fire = lemonback = sulfur
Yellowbelly = goblin = orangbelly = bling
Het Red Axanthics = Lace black back = Green Pastel

It's a headache, and no short way (That I know of) to learn them all. Just a lot of reading, research, chatting, and straight up asking questions. It will get easier as time goes by, and you learn more and more about the different morphs and what defines them, to see the differences/similarities and be able to make an educated guess. Until then, keep asking, searching, reading, and learning. Sorry I wasn't more helpful, I'm a newbie too, this is just my opinion / conclusions thus far.

Thanks! That was helpful!

So if there are 2 lines of one morph, those lines are most likely genetically the same, but with different modifiers to make them slightly different, right? And breeding 2 lines of one morph together would yield the expected results of breeding 2 individuals of the same line, just with variation from those 2 lines. example: If Fire and Flame were 2 lines of the same morph, breeding a Fire to a Flame would result in normal, more fire/flame, and the super, with variation in each form coming from the 2 lines. Right? Or do snake genetics work different from the mammal genetics I am used to?

[RoseyReps]

Thanks! That was helpful!

So if there are 2 lines of one morph, those lines are most likely genetically the same, but with different modifiers to make them slightly different, right? And breeding 2 lines of one morph together would yield the expected results of breeding 2 individuals of the same line, just with variation from those 2 lines. example: If Fire and Flame were 2 lines of the same morph, breeding a Fire to a Flame would result in normal, more fire/flame, and the super, with variation in each form coming from the 2 lines. Right? Or do snake genetics work different from the mammal genetics I am used to?

Generally yes, you are right. flame x fire would give you 25%normals, 50% flames/fires, 25% Black eyed lucy's.

The problem though is this, when dealing with two lines of a similar / same morph, if you breed them together, you now cannot be 100% of what you have as offspring. IE: I breed a lesser x butter, how do I sell the offspring? lessers? or butters? Though they are the same, some people are looking for specific's. There is a stigma with a lot of the lines/morphs were people WANT a certain one, and by doing some of those pairings you are (in theory) dirtying the lines.

If you were in that situation, your best bet would be to sell them as the less of the two price wise. You may take a hit and sell a butter for a lesser's price, but your customers won't be coming back with pitchforks saying he ain't no *Insert whatever morph* you charged me for!

Again, I stress this is all just from a Novice's standpoint, as I am very new *Joined bp.net in July, got my first BP in August*, I have not dealt with, nor bred any animals thus far. So please take my replies with a grain of salt, as I am always learning new things and I'm probably bass ackwards on some of my ideas/conclusions.

[satomi325]

Generally yes, you are right. flame x fire would give you 25%normals, 50% flames/fires, 25% Black eyed lucy's.

The problem though is this, when dealing with two lines of a similar / same morph, if you breed them together, you now cannot be 100% of what you have as offspring. IE: I breed a lesser x butter, how do I sell the offspring? lessers? or butters? Though they are the same, some people are looking for specific's. There is a stigma with a lot of the lines/morphs were people WANT a certain one, and by doing some of those pairings you are (in theory) dirtying the lines.

If you were in that situation, your best bet would be to sell them as the less of the two price wise. You may take a hit and sell a butter for a lesser's price, but your customers won't be coming back with pitchforks saying he ain't no *Insert whatever morph* you charged me for!

Again, I stress this is all just from a Novice's standpoint, as I am very new *Joined bp.net in July, got my first BP in August*, I have not dealt with, nor bred any animals thus far. So please take my replies with a grain of salt, as I am always learning new things and I'm probably bass ackwards on some of my ideas/conclusions.

This is correct.

Different lines of the same base mutation will still give you normals, base mutation, and the super(homozygous form).


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[CollideOverMe]

Also, when breeding black pastel to black pastel, you get an all black, white bellied snake. Whereas, if you breed a cinny to a cinny, you get an all brown snake with a white belly. So they are not exactly the same.

[PitOnTheProwl]

A good black pastel and cinny are like night and day

[sorraia]

Generally yes, you are right. flame x fire would give you 25%normals, 50% flames/fires, 25% Black eyed lucy's.

The problem though is this, when dealing with two lines of a similar / same morph, if you breed them together, you now cannot be 100% of what you have as offspring. IE: I breed a lesser x butter, how do I sell the offspring? lessers? or butters? Though they are the same, some people are looking for specific's. There is a stigma with a lot of the lines/morphs were people WANT a certain one, and by doing some of those pairings you are (in theory) dirtying the lines.

If you were in that situation, your best bet would be to sell them as the less of the two price wise. You may take a hit and sell a butter for a lesser's price, but your customers won't be coming back with pitchforks saying he ain't no *Insert whatever morph* you charged me for!

Again, I stress this is all just from a Novice's standpoint, as I am very new *Joined bp.net in July, got my first BP in August*, I have not dealt with, nor bred any animals thus far. So please take my replies with a grain of salt, as I am always learning new things and I'm probably bass ackwards on some of my ideas/conclusions.

Understood. For my current purposes, I am just trying to understand what the morph is, and the genetics behind it. Currently I'm making up a file listing all the base morphs, with descriptions, suggested genetics, and pictures. Instead of having 10 descriptions for the same morphs, I will only have one listing, but include the names of those 10 different lines with the description.

Also, when breeding black pastel to black pastel, you get an all black, white bellied snake. Whereas, if you breed a cinny to a cinny, you get an all brown snake with a white belly. So they are not exactly the same.

Alright thanks! So genetically they are two different morphs. Are they two genes on the same locus, or two genes on separate locus?
I'm asking this specifically because I read one thread where someone was attempting to group different morphs into "complexes". My understanding of what they were trying to do is to determine what morphs are different genes/alleles on the same locus.

My background on this would be with rats, albino and colorpoint. The dominant allele on that locus is "full color", denoted "C". Color point is the "Himalayan gene", denoted "c^h" and albino is "colorless", denoted "c". These alleles are in this order: C>c^h>c, with C being dominant over both c^h and c, and c^h only being dominant over c. Although c^h is considered dominant over c, it is actually incompletely dominant, where an animal that is c^hc^h is called a Siamese (an ideal, show quality animal would have strong points with darker shading over the body, giving more color to the background as well as the points), and an animal that is c^hc is called Himalayan (an ideal, show quality animal would have strong points but no shading, giving a whitish background as well as dark points). cc is of course albino and C- is any full colored animal (black, agouti, blue, etc). There are other genes on that locus, but I am not as familiar with the, nor are they as common as these three, so I have not included them in this description.

If that description made sense, is that how these "complexes" in ball python morphs work too? Orders of course would vary from one complex to another.

[OhhWatALoser]

Flame = fire = lemonback = sulfur
Yellowbelly = goblin = orangbelly = bling
Het Red Axanthics = Lace black back = Green Pastel

couple i will disagree with, flame and sulfur i agree are the same thing (heck bought from the same pet store on the same day, why do they have different names?), but they tend to throw a way more patterned super than the super fire, then the lemonback super I have never seen one with any pattern at all. while the heterozygous form may be very close, the apparent consistency with the supers makes me say they are different.

orangebelly may be related to the graphite, ultra ivory stuff, last I heard ben still wasn't sure what was going on with that project. So I would label that one as different until further notice.

Here is a list of all of the proven complexes I know of http://www.owalreptiles.com/complexes.php many are considered the same tho, with what was already said, mystic = phantom, spector = whirlwind, banana = coral glow,

lori is normally thrown in with the het red, lace, and green pastel, even if none of them are proven to be compatible to my knowledge, tho we suspect them to be.

another thing to note is the 3 lines of axanthic, VPI, TSK, and Jolliff are all said to lay on different loci.