Dominant morph similar to Desert?

[TheAce734]

Ever since I started diving into the wonderful world of ball pythons I've been enamored by the desert gene. It seems to bring out the best of any other morph combined with it. Even alone it has a super simple, clean, and striking beauty to it.

However, as probably all of you know there is the ugly truth that females cannot lay viable eggs, slugging out or worse dying. Even if I had a male desert I don't think I could in good conscious perpetuate such a lethal characteristic. So my question is "What genes out there are most similar to the desert gene without having the drawbacks?"

The main aspects I'm focusing on are a dominant gene that will clean up and reduce patterns while really making those yellows and blacks pop. There's probably no right answer I know but any input would be much appreciated! Thank you all in advance.

[Eric Alan]

A Spotnose Fire combo should be right down your alley.

[stickyalvinroll]

Anything with fire

[For Goodness Snakes]

I like the Gold Blush, here are a few that I've produced.

This is a Gold Blush Mochi (Enchi / Mojave)



Gold Blush Mystic


Gold Blush Mojave


Gold Blush Fire Pastel Mojave


Gold Blush Firefly


Gold Blush Pastave


Gold Blush Crystal


Good luck with your search.

Brian Gundy
For Goodness Snakes
408-981-6694

[TheAce734]

Wow that goldblush is quite impressive! Never heard of it before now but I really like what it does to the mojave and the combo with enchi is insane too. http://www.worldofballpythons.com/morphs/gold-rush/

Something that is appealing about the desert gene for me is the lack of keyholes or aliens heads. Fire doesn't really reduce the pattern and enchi can sometimes look a bit pixilated (though this is cool in its own right). The combo with the spotnose comes real close but it would still be convenient if all these characteristics were rapped up in one dom gene.

Co-dom is good too but I've heard the traits can become washed out when mixed with a lot of other morphs. Please correct me if this is wrong.

Thanks for all the thoughts and ideas so far!

[BMorrison]

I'm a huge fan on the enchi gene but it's definitely more of a pixelated look than a clean fade in/out. I'd have to say Fire.


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[Eric Alan]

Co-dom is good too but I've heard the traits can become washed out when mixed with a lot of other morphs. Please correct me if this is wrong.

In this question's context, there is no effective difference between incomplete dominant (what you're calling co-dom), dominant, or recessive traits. By that I mean that the method a gene uses to expresses itself plays no part in the characteristic associated with it. Each morph type (dominant, incomplete dominant, recessive) has the ability to improve or fade as an animal grows, and that isn't tied to the dominant or recessive nature of the alleles. Within each base morph there are examples of animals that glow as adults and examples of animals that are lovingly referred to as "pet quality". If you flip the switch to start seeing animals along these lines, the questions you'll start thinking about will be much more in tune with the goals you have in mind. Good luck!

Best regards,
Eric

[TheAce734]

Thanks for the info Eric. I have a few clarifying questions on this point:

Lets say we have two animals one that has a gene that increases yellow pigmentation and an other has a gene that decreases the same pigmentation. The exact mechanism for how these change the animals coloring is unknown but we do know that the gene that increases the pigmentation is a dominant one while the other is incomplete dominant. If these two were bred together would we have any way of telling which gene would take precedence in a double morph offspring?

What if now this offspring that has both morph genes is bred to another reducing pigmentation morph and the resulting animal was a super of the reducing gene but still contained the increasing gene. Would you expect different effects if the yellow increasing gene was dominant or incomplete dominant?

I understand that this is pretty abstract and overly simplified situation/question but any input is appreciated. Let me know if any part of it needs clarification.

Cheers!

[Eric Alan]

You're getting pretty far in he weeds with that line of thinking. We simply don't know enough (from a scientific perspective) about ball python genetics to begin to answer those hypothiticals. We know what we know largely because of trial and error - not because we've decoded their genome.

If you have questions about actual BP morphs and how they interact with each other, feel free to ask away!