Markers?

What do people mean by marked for pied or showing the markers for pied? Just want to make sure cause I'm seeing this more and more on the classifieds and don't want to get suckered into anything! Thanks guys!

Pied markers are marks and differences on the animal's side and belly pattern and color that indicate it is carrying one of the recessive Pied genes (it takes 2 Pied genes in order for the morph to express visually, with only 1 gene they look normal). Unfortunately these marks are far from accurate and normal Ball Pythons that are NOT het for Pied can also display them.

The only way to prove that the animal is really het is to wait the years for them to reach maturity bred them and confirm the results once you see the babies. This is why you should be cautious when buying hets.

I'd recommend checking out this thread which has some info regarding Pied markers: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...act-or-Fiction

yeah I understand the genetics side of everything I guess I was more curious as to what the markers were exactly...guess I wasn't to specific on that in the original post lol

Markers are normally railroad tracks (black striping) down each side side of the belly. Sometimes they are also ringers. The tricky part of pied markers is that isnt not uncommon for 100% normal ball pythons so have them too.

http://www.iherp.com/Gallery/88170/5...ZwWgt5VS60.jpg

This snake is just a normal, but it the best pic of pied markers that I have. In my opinion, markers are only really helpful when trying to choose which possible het pied to buy.