Melanistic Ball Python

[andrea]

Hi I am new to this site, and trying to get some idea if I have stumbled across gold...
I am afraid I do not have pictures as yet but will describe her (poss he) as best I can,

when on a visit to our local rep shop to obtain another of our royals this girl was being sold and she was a good price for an adult 'normal het G-stripe' but her looks blew us away, she is all dark her saddles are the darkest of browns i have ever seen and her body colour is a shade or 2 darker, her belly is grey and mottled, and after searching the internet for the last 4 weeks i have found only 2 pictures of melanistic ball pythons to which she looks identical to but I do not want to believe that this is the 3rd known melanistic does anyone else have one that I could see pictures of please

any help would be greatly appreciated

andrea x

[Vypyrz]

Hello Andrea, and to BP.net. It's difficult to tell without photos. Usually, the term melanistic is accompanied with the prefix "hypo", meaning, a reduction of color.

[MisterKyte]

Welcome to the forum!

Melanistic is a broad term that essentially just means an animal has an abnormal amount of black pigment so "melanistic" BPs are actually rather common when you take into account morphs such as the Cinnamon or Black Pastel (and those are just a couple of the ones out there). It should also be taken into account that normals are highly variable in their appearances to begin with and they can range from very dark to very light and any shade in between yet still just be a normal but like Vypyrz said, it's hard to tell without any images.

[SquamishSerpents]

I have a friend with a line of "Melanistic" Cinnamon's - pretty cool. I don't know the story so I will just link you

Melanistic Story

Melanistic Cinny

Hope those links work. They're not the best pics.

[Pythonfriend]

melanistic refers to any animal that has more dark pigment than usual. so, cinnamon, black pastel, GHI, and mahogany are all melanistic morphs, producing melanistic animals. so when you just call it melanistic, you basically say: its a lot darker, but it is unknown if its a new morph or a morph that is already known or if its not genetic at all.

hypomelanistic means it has less, or reduced, melanin.

amelanistic is a synonym for albino, it means: without dark pigment.

hypermelanistic would mean it has even more dark pigment.

its basically ancient greek grammar, you get it a lot in medicine. hypothermia = body temperature too low. hyperthermia = body temperature too high. or asensitive (no response to a certain medicine at all) versus hypersensitive (response to the medicine is too strong, like an allergic reaction or something).

so, first thing to do would be to figure out if its maybe a cinnamon or black pastel, or if its just a very dark normal.