The Ball Python Rainbow

It's no secret that humans love to tinker with the animals we domesticate. Just compare a pug to a wolf, and you'll see how extreme we can take it! Whether for function, form, or fancy, customizing pets seems to be pretty standard practice. However, most of our modification in most species came after years of selective breeding. Even when mutations did crop up (dwarfism, brachycephalism, albinism, etc.) we still took several generations to mold these traits into displaying the intensity we see in most or our modern domestic companions. I'm generalizing here, but for the most part dramatic mutations don't really seem to be all that common of am occurrence. Even a great deal of CB snakes and lizard morphs are polygenic, having been line bred to produce the clarity and consistency of color and form we see today.

The notable exception seems to be ball pythons. Even today, people comb over wild caught imports looking for that one reptile with unusual color or markings, hoping to add it to a new project and prove it out- that it will be a heritable mutation. So my question is: WHY? Why do ball pythons seem to display such a startling array of genetic variance out in the wild? How is it that in only a decade or two, we've found enough base morphs to create (according to WoBP's current numbers) OVER 3700 genetic combinations? What makes BPs so prone to seemingly spontaneous and prolific mutations, when compared to, say, a sheep, who generally will come in maybe four or five colors tops?

Just the presently known base morphs can make a lot more than 3700 combinations.

IMO, there are so many base morphs partly because the snakes spend a lot of time in mammal burrows lurking for prey to step into their parlor. There is a better chance for such snakes to survive because they are not wandering around for predators to see them easily. Even so, something like piebald is very, very rare in the wild.

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Originally Posted by paulh

Just the presently known base morphs can make a lot more than 3700 combinations.

IMO, there are so many base morphs partly because the snakes spend a lot of time in mammal burrows lurking for prey to step into their parlor. There is a better chance for such snakes to survive because they are not wandering around for predators to see them easily. Even so, something like piebald is very, very rare in the wild.

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Interestingly, if I recall correctly, I think primarily because of that program to domesticate foxes, we're staring to see a link between piebaldism and domestication. Two of the things that started happening in those foxes that were selected for their temperament and suitability for pets is that they A) started getting floppy ears and B) piebaldism popped up! A great deal of domestic animals feature irregular patterns, but it's true you don't find it in the wild often. One of the things that we do see is albinism, but it's not very common for albino animals to live to breeding age in the wild without human intervention. It does happen though.

it only takes 12 morphs to have 4096 combinations.... and that doesn't include supers.

I think the big thing is just simply people are looking harder with ball pythons compared to others.

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Originally Posted by OhhWatALoser

it only takes 12 morphs to have 4096 combinations.... and that doesn't include supers.

I think the big thing is just simply people are looking harder with ball pythons compared to others.

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Interesting! So you postulate that other wild animals DO have a rate of spontaneous mutaion similar to ball pythons, it's just that we aren't actively looking for it?

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Originally Posted by Lizardlicks

Interesting! So you postulate that other wild animals DO have a rate of spontaneous mutaion similar to ball pythons, it's just that we aren't actively looking for it?

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I see nothing to suggest that the rate of mutation would be increased randomly in a ball python.

Also don't forget the sample size with ball pythons. For decades they have been digging up something like 150,000 ball python eggs a year. Even with a low morph rate are going to start to accumulate out of that many. And the morphs that hatched from those eggs didn't even have to survive one day in the wild.