Count Your Pits

[Coils]

Hey everyone! (Does your ball python have five heat pits, yes or no?)

I have been wanting to address this for a while, but I am just now getting around to it. My pastel Todd seems to be deformed. I am not sure if I should exactly put it -that- way though....he seems to be just like any other ball and functions normally so far.

When I got him out of his box after reaching my house for the first time I noticed after taking a picture and zooming in that he had....quite a -lot- of heat pits! Every other ball python I had only has exactly five on each side of the nose. I even have been counting every pit I can in ball python pictures since this trying to find more than five, but I have yet to find any with more than that.

I asked the breeder soon after if this was something he had noticed. He said no, and that it shouldn't affect him negatively. He also told me that he wasn't sure that ball pythons have an average of five heat pits to begin with. Honestly, that's something I would think he should have known if he's a breeder since I haven't seen any balls with more than five pits besides Todd -yet-.

He told me he would make a blog and contact his 'professor' to ask him more about it...even use some of my pictures to show him and all of that.
I never heard from him again(and he never posted anything), so now I am investigating a little on my own.


Here are pictures of them...you can clearly see where one is almost joined making two smaller pits.
He has a full set of six on the one side and then on the messed up side he has seven!













Also does anyone think or know if this could have a really bad effect in breeding him??
I would really hope not, but I have read even little things could cause big problems in offspring and I -did- plan to breed him some day if I could!

[blackcrystal22]

I HIGHLY doubt it. :]

[LadyOhh]

Looks Normal to me!

[Myenia]

I actually just started a thread yesterday reguarding my BP...who has what appears to be 4 heat pits on the bottom jaw (2 on each side), like a gtp or something would have. Not normal either...

[Coils]

I actually just started a thread yesterday reguarding my BP...who has what appears to be 4 heat pits on the bottom jaw (2 on each side), like a gtp or something would have. Not normal either...

-That- I would say was actually normal to tell you the truth. All my ball pythons seem to have those things, but they are VERY small and I am not even sure they work like the top five are supposed to.

Look at the picture above of Todd...the last one you can see near the corner or the mouth the slightly small looking heat pits!

[The Beast]

http://www.ballpython.ca/collection/albino/albino.html

Check that Albino out.

It has six on each side.

[Coils]

http://www.ballpython.ca/collection/albino/albino.html

Check that Albino out.

It has six on each side.

AHA! You found one! That's gotta be the first besides Todd I have seen with more heat pits! Thanks! I just wanted to know if there were anymore out there.

[The Beast]

AHA! You found one! That's gotta be the first besides Todd I have seen with more heat pits! Thanks! I just wanted to know if there were anymore out there.

No problem.
Once I saw your snake I couldn't help but count the pits on others, whenever I saw pictures.I think its pretty interesting.

[The Beast]

This paradox albino also has what seems to be six.

5 normal heat pits and then one small one.

http://ballpython.com/morph.php?morph=paradox

[Coils]

This paradox albino also has what seems to be six.

5 normal heat pits and then one small one.

http://ballpython.com/morph.php?morph=paradox

Haha, man your good at that counting heat pits, though I really dont know how I missed the one on Mark's site. I am not really worried about it anymore and guess I just have a special littel guy.