General guide/ basic markers for morph ID?

I apologize if this is somewhere else on this board, but I tried to find it before posting and haven't yet. I have been trying to learn as much as I can about the different types of morphs I see occurring all over the BP world through this forum and otherwise, and I was just wondering if there was any sort of resource available to me that could help me get a better knowledge base for identifying at least the major/common morphs that show up here.

I understand that there are hundreds of morphs, each with variations, with new ones coming out constantly, so learning each and every one of them is impossible; I am just wanting a kick start to get at least a handful that most users here seem to be able to recognize straight away.

I also understand that each morph can have it's own variations and blurred lines with other morphs which can add to the difficulty in identifying them and that some morphs are extremely subtle and may not be identifiable through pictures without knowing genetics.

I am not looking for something that will make me an expert on identifying every morph out there, or that will allow me to recognize any of them through a single picture. That will take a lifetime of experience that I look forward to working toward. I'm simply looking for a step up in the right direction, just to get better acquainted with the more common and popular ones I see here so that I don't feel so ignorant at not being able to tell one from another simply because there is some marking that I just don't know to look for.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions; even if it's just a referral to another post which already answers this, that I missed seeing.

PS; just to save some time for some of you, I have found numerous sites including this one that just have pictures of different morphs and I have attempted to just put them side by side with normals and other similar morphs to teach myself. While these resources are helpful, I would still appreciate if something exists somewhere that also includes some pointers as to what to look for (i.e. 'when looking for the fire morph, look for this type of pattern around this area of the snake.")

Actually just looking at picture is going to teach you more than you think. I can't really tell you in solid words what a yellow belly looks like, but I can ID most of them in half a second. Problem with pointers is the variation in the morphs. Like your example fires, they normally have a head stamp but not all of them do. Some take longer than other to grow into their color. Some are orange as babies. some are tan. but for some reason, I can still pick out fires quickly just from all the pictures I have looked at and examples in real life I have seen.

closest thing I can think of to what you are asking is http://ball-pythons.net/forums/forum...-Python-Morphs

Just browse the forums for a couple weeks, you will be surprised what you pick up without even knowing it. then if there is any specific morph that you have questions about, ask. There is no doubt some are harder to pick out than others.

I appreciate the link. In your examples, my original question came from facts like I do not know what you mean by "head stamp." What is it supposed to look like vs what normals heads look like. And the color they grow into, what color is that exactly? And the fact that you said fires normally have a head stamp is exactly what I'm looking for. How do you know to look for a head stamp vs "blushing" or "banding" or other things that other morphs have. And what morphs do incorporate those terms? Those are the questions I have. Maybe a quick glossary of terms in visual markers would be another thing i'm looking for.

Anyway I'm about to open the link you sent. I appreciate it. :)

The lists of different morphs that Judy posted is incredibly helpful. Thank you very much. This is a very good start

I've been trying to teach my wife this and you have to have a method. Staring at the snake in general won't help you. I start at the head and work my way back. So for example, what is the head marking? break that down into, is the head light or dark? is it a solid colour or does it have a pattern? what colour is the eye ? is there an eye stripe and is so what colour is it? then look at the body for colour, pattern, etc, finally look a the belly. If you break it down in that way you will start to see the clues.

but

Knowing the genetics of the parents is always a great place to start if you are blessed with that information.

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Originally Posted by Karokash

I appreciate the link. In your examples, my original question came from facts like I do not know what you mean by "head stamp." What is it supposed to look like vs what normals heads look like. And the color they grow into, what color is that exactly? And the fact that you said fires normally have a head stamp is exactly what I'm looking for. How do you know to look for a head stamp vs "blushing" or "banding" or other things that other morphs have. And what morphs do incorporate those terms? Those are the questions I have. Maybe a quick glossary of terms in visual markers would be another thing i'm looking for.

Anyway I'm about to open the link you sent. I appreciate it. :)

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You brought a thought into my head. I guess the best place to start might be to ID what a normal ball python looks like. While there are variations in normals and exceptions to what I am about to list, this is pretty typical of a normal: The head has a brown "helmet" on top, broken up by a lighter stripe that goes through the eye. The pattern after tends to vary between thick spider web looking to circles and dorsal striping and anything inbetween. Side pattern have typical shapes, most famous being alien heads, which are the lighter areas with two dots, but sometimes they have 1 dot or no dots.

Fires head stamp looks like someone stamped the helmet on top of their head with a lighter shade. Fire color is tan when adults most of the time. Blushing is a lighter color coming out of the black areas of the pattern. Many pastel will have it, super pastels tend to have more. Banding is a pattern type that looks like it has multiple bands trying to wrap around the diameter of the snake. http://www.captivebredreptileforums....python_001.jpg Kinda like the opposite of a dorsal stripe.

All of that was very helpful information; exactly the type of thing I have been looking for. Having a normal to compare side by side to a picture of the morph makes it a lot easier to see the differences to distinguish them