Could this be Blade?

[rlditmars]

I hope someone with experience in the morph can look at these and let me know if this is Blade? It is overall very dark, even the top lip area, and there is only one very faint and small flame which can e seen in the last pic. I realize there is a lot of variation in Normal Ball Pythons. Thanks in advance for any help.

[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]

[Albert Clark]

Fantastic looking animal rl in any case. All i know about the blade gene is the very reduced patterning in them and it looks like that is evident in this guy. No actual experience singling them out though.

[Eru_Iluvatar]

To me it looks like a normal, but maybe the visual gene tends to be more clear when you breed it to another morph

[rlditmars]

I don't know if this will help at all, but this baby is an Enchi from the same clutch.

[IMG][/IMG]

[kxr]

Based on the amount of black in the back compared to what I'm seeing in a lot of pictures of them I want to say no. It could be a low expression blade but I'd be more inclined to call that enchi an enchi blade then the first snake. What was the pairing?

[rlditmars]

Fantastic looking animal rl in any case. All i know about the blade gene is the very reduced patterning in them and it looks like that is evident in this guy. No actual experience singling them out though.

Thank you.

To me it looks like a normal, but maybe the visual gene tends to be more clear when you breed it to another morph

For the most part I wouldn't argue with you, but I'm trying to rule out possibilities.

Based on the amount of black in the back compared to what I'm seeing in a lot of pictures of them I want to say no. It could be a low expression blade but I'd be more inclined to call that enchi an enchi blade then the first snake. What was the pairing?

The pairing was a Lesser het Hypo to an Enchi Hypo so these are het Hypo. But the Sire (Lesser het) looks better than most examples of the same, and I suspect there is more then meets the eye. The other Enchi that came out of this clutch is in shed right now or I would post pics of it as well. Even though they are both Enchi het Hypo there is a night a day difference between the two from the moment they hatched. If the normal is Blade it is not an example I would have sought out as I think there are better examples. But since this may just be a low expression example that came as a part of the package, I can't complain. As I answered above, I am trying to rule out the possibilities. Here are pictures of the Sire and its sister sibling. Blade would go a long way into explaining her appearance as well. The second pic is a separate picture of the Sister to the Sire.

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

[kxr]

Honestly I don't feel comfortable giving you advice on this when neither of the parents were known blades. Maybe you should try to contact the breeder of the lesser? Or you could maybe try to contact someone who works a lot with blade... The only name that really comes to mind is Mark Mandic but that's probably because I'm Canadian haha I'm not exactly sure if he'd respond but he'd know what they were if he did. Either way the enchi you have there is a Killer!

[AbsoluteApril]

I thought 'Blade' was a descriptive term for a selective bred line of reduced pattern clown morphs and not it's own morph?

[Trisnake]

I thought 'Blade' was a descriptive term for a selective bred line of reduced pattern clown morphs and not it's own morph?

Its a genetic codominant trait that arose out of clown stock, if I'm not mistaken. There is a super form.

[Albert Clark]

THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^ There are pastel blades, pewter, and orange dreams that have been incorporated as well as other morphs. So yeah, there is a super form as well.